Geocentric model

In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as

geocentrism, often exemplified specifically by the
Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the
Universe with Earth at the center. Under most
geocentric models, the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets
all orbit Earth. The geocentric model was the
predominant description of the cosmos in many
European ancient civilizations, such as those of
Aristotle in Classical Greece and Ptolemy in Roman
Egypt, as well as during the Islamic Golden Age.

Two observations supported the idea that Earth was Figure of the heavenly bodies – An illustration of a
the center of the Universe. First, from anywhere on Ptolemaic geocentric system by Portuguese
Earth, the Sun appears to revolve around Earth once cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu
per day. While the Moon and the planets have their Velho, 1568 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)
own motions, they also appear to revolve around Earth
about once per day. The stars appeared to be fixed on a
celestial sphere rotating once each day about an axis through the geographic poles of Earth.[1] Second,
Earth seems to be unmoving from the perspective of an earthbound observer; it feels solid, stable, and
stationary.

Ancient Greek, ancient Roman, and medieval philosophers usually combined the geocentric model
with a spherical Earth, in contrast to the older flat-Earth model implied in some mythology. However,
the Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310 – c. 230 BC) developed a
heliocentric model placing all of the then-known planets in their correct order around the Sun. The
ancient Greeks believed that the motions of the planets were circular, a view that was not challenged
in Western culture until the 17th century, when Johannes Kepler postulated that orbits were
heliocentric and elliptical (Kepler's first law of planetary motion). In 1687, Isaac Newton showed that
elliptical orbits could be derived from his laws of gravitation.

The astronomical predictions of Ptolemy's geocentric model, developed in the 2nd century of the
Christian era, served as the basis for preparing astrological and astronomical charts for over 1,500
years. The geocentric model held sway into the early modern age, but from the late 16th century
onward, it was gradually superseded by the heliocentric model of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.
There was much resistance to the transition between these two theories, since for a long time the
geocentric postulate produced more accurate results. Additionally some felt that a new, unknown
theory could not subvert an accepted consensus for geocentrism.
Ancient Greece
In the 6th century BC, Anaximander proposed a
cosmology in which Earth is shaped like a section of a
pillar (a cylinder), held aloft at the center of everything.
The Sun, Moon, and planets were holes in invisible
wheels which surround Earth, and through those holes,
humans could see concealed fire. At around the same
time, Pythagoras thought that Earth was a sphere (in
accordance with observations of eclipses), but not at
the center; he believed that it was in motion around an
unseen fire. Later these two concepts were combined,
so that most of the educated Greeks from the 4th
Illustration of Anaximander's models of the
century BC onwards thought that Earth was a sphere at
universe. On the left, summer; on the right, winter.
the center of the universe.[2]

In the 4th century BC Plato and his student Aristotle,

wrote works based on the geocentric model. According to Plato, the Earth was a sphere, stationary at
the center of the universe. The stars and planets were carried around the Earth on spheres or circles,
arranged in the order (outwards from the center): Moon, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn,
fixed stars, with the fixed stars located on the celestial sphere. In his "Myth of Er", a section of the
Republic, Plato describes the cosmos as the Spindle of Necessity, attended by the Sirens and turned by
the three Fates. Eudoxus of Cnidus, who worked with Plato, developed a less mythical, more
mathematical explanation of the planets' motion based on Plato's dictum stating that all phenomena
in the heavens can be explained with uniform circular motion. Aristotle elaborated on Eudoxus'
system.

In the fully developed Aristotelian system, the spherical Earth is at the center of the universe, and all
other heavenly bodies are attached to 47–55 transparent, rotating spheres surrounding the Earth, all
concentric with it. (The number is so high because several spheres are needed for each planet.) These
spheres, known as crystalline spheres, all moved at different uniform speeds to create the revolution
of bodies around the Earth. They were composed of an incorruptible substance called aether. Aristotle
believed that the Moon was in the innermost sphere and therefore touches the realm of Earth, causing
the dark spots (maculae) and the ability to go through lunar phases. He further described his system
by explaining the natural tendencies of the terrestrial elements: earth, water, fire, air, as well as
celestial aether. His system held that earth was the heaviest element, with the strongest movement
towards the center, thus water formed a layer surrounding the sphere of Earth. The tendency of air
and fire, on the other hand, was to move upwards, away from the center, with fire being lighter than
air. Beyond the layer of fire, were the solid spheres of aether in which the celestial bodies were
embedded. They were also entirely composed of aether.

Adherence to the geocentric model stemmed largely from several important observations. First of all,
if the Earth did move, then one ought to be able to observe the shifting of the fixed stars due to stellar
parallax. Thus if the Earth was moving, the shapes of the constellations should change considerably
over the course of a year. As they did not appear to move, either the stars are much farther away than
the Sun and the planets than previously conceived, making their motion undetectable, or the Earth is
not moving at all. Because the stars are actually much further away than Greek astronomers
postulated (making angular movement extremely small), stellar parallax was not detected until the
19th century. Therefore, the Greeks chose the simpler of the two explanations. Another observation
used in favor of the geocentric model at the time was the apparent consistency of Venus' luminosity,
which implies that it is usually about the same distance from Earth, which in turn is more consistent
with geocentrism than heliocentrism. (In fact, Venus' luminous consistency is due to any loss of light
caused by its phases being compensated for by an increase in apparent size caused by its varying
distance from Earth.) Objectors to heliocentrism noted that terrestrial bodies naturally tend to come
to rest as near as possible to the center of the Earth. Further, barring the opportunity to fall closer the
center, terrestrial bodies tend not to move unless forced by an outside object, or transformed to a
different element by heat or moisture.

Atmospheric explanations for many phenomena were preferred because the Eudoxan–Aristotelian
model based on perfectly concentric spheres was not intended to explain changes in the brightness of
the planets due to a change in distance.[3] Eventually, perfectly concentric spheres were abandoned as
it was impossible to develop a sufficiently accurate model under that ideal, with the mathematical
methods then available. However, while providing for similar explanations, the later deferent and
epicycle model was already flexible enough to accommodate observations.

Ptolemaic model
Although the basic tenets of Greek geocentrism were established
by the time of Aristotle, the details of his system did not become
standard. The Ptolemaic system, developed by the Hellenistic
astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus in the 2nd century AD, finally
standardised geocentrism. His main astronomical work, the
Almagest, was the culmination of centuries of work by Hellenic,
Hellenistic and Babylonian astronomers. For over a millennium,
European and Islamic astronomers assumed it was the correct
cosmological model. Because of its influence, people sometimes
wrongly think the Ptolemaic system is identical with the
geocentric model.
The basic elements of Ptolemaic
Ptolemy argued that the Earth was a sphere in the center of the astronomy, showing a planet on an
universe, from the simple observation that half the stars were epicycle with an eccentric deferent
above the horizon and half were below the horizon at any time and an equant point. The Green
shaded area is the celestial sphere
(stars on rotating stellar sphere), and the assumption that the
which the planet occupies.
stars were all at some modest distance from the center of the
universe. If the Earth were substantially displaced from the center,
this division into visible and invisible stars would not be equal.[n 1]
Ptolemaic system
In the Ptolemaic system, each
planet is moved by a system of
two spheres: one called its
deferent; the other, its
epicycle. The deferent is a
circle whose center point,
called the eccentric and
marked in the diagram with an
Pages from 1550 Annotazione on
Sacrobosco's De sphaera mundi, X, is distant from the Earth.
showing the Ptolemaic system. The original purpose of the
The Ptolemaic geocentric planetary
eccentric was to account for model showing the epicycles of the
the difference in length of the planets and the Moon
seasons (northern autumn was about five days shorter than spring
during this time period) by placing the Earth away from the center
of rotation of the rest of the universe. Another sphere, the epicycle, is embedded inside the deferent
sphere and is represented by the smaller dotted line to the right. A given planet then moves around
the epicycle at the same time the epicycle moves along the path marked by the deferent. These
combined movements cause the given planet to move closer to and further away from the Earth at
different points in its orbit, and explained the observation that planets slowed down, stopped, and
moved backward in retrograde motion, and then again reversed to resume normal, or prograde,
motion.

The deferent-and-epicycle model had been used by Greek astronomers for centuries along with the
idea of the eccentric (a deferent whose center is slightly away from the Earth), which was even older.
In the illustration, the center of the deferent is not the Earth but the spot marked X, making it
eccentric (from the Greek ἐκ ec- meaning "from" and κέντρον kentron meaning "center"), from which
the spot takes its name. Unfortunately, the system that was available in Ptolemy's time did not quite
match observations, even though it was an improvement over Hipparchus' system. Most noticeably
the size of a planet's retrograde loop (especially that of Mars) would be smaller, or sometimes larger,
than expected, resulting in positional errors of as much as 30 degrees. To alleviate the problem,
Ptolemy developed the equant. The equant was a point near the center of a planet's orbit where, if you
were to stand there and watch, the center of the planet's epicycle would always appear to move at
uniform speed; all other locations would see non-uniform speed, as on the Earth. By using an equant,
Ptolemy claimed to keep motion which was uniform and circular, although it departed from the
Platonic ideal of uniform circular motion. The resultant system, which eventually came to be widely
accepted in the west, seems unwieldy to modern astronomers; each planet required an epicycle
revolving on a deferent, offset by an equant which was different for each planet. It predicted various
celestial motions, including the beginning and end of retrograde motion, to within a maximum error
of 10 degrees, considerably better than without the equant.

The model with epicycles is in fact a very good model of an elliptical orbit with low eccentricity. The
well-known ellipse shape does not appear to a noticeable extent when the eccentricity is less than 5%,
but the offset distance of the "center" (in fact the focus occupied by the Sun) is very noticeable even
with low eccentricities as possessed by the planets.
To summarize, Ptolemy conceived a system that was compatible with Aristotelian philosophy and
succeeded in tracking actual observations and predicting future movement mostly to within the limits
of the next 1000 years of observations. The observed motions and his mechanisms for explaining
them include:

The Ptolemaic system

Object(s) Observation Modeling mechanism

Stars: Daily westward motion of sphere of stars, carrying all other
Westward motion of entire sky in
Stars spheres with it; normally ignored; other spheres have additional
~24 hrs ("first motion")
motions

Eastward motion yearly along

Sun Eastward motion of Sun's sphere in one year
ecliptic

Non-uniform rate along ecliptic

Sun Eccentric orbit (Sun's deferent center off Earth)
(uneven seasons)
Monthly eastward motion
Moon Monthly eastward motion of Moon's sphere
compared to stars

The 5 General eastward motion through Eastward motion of deferents; period set by observation of planet
planets zodiac going around the ecliptic

Motion of epicycle in same direction as deferent. Period of

Planets Retrograde motion
epicycle is time between retrograde motions (synodic period).
Variations in speed through the
Planets Eccentric per planet
zodiac

Planets Variations in retrograde timing Equants per planet (Copernicus used a pair of epicycles instead)

Only ratio between radius of deferent and associated epicycle

Planets Size of deferents, epicycles
determined; absolute distances not determined in theory
Interior Average greatest elongations of
Size of epicycles set by these angles, proportional to distances
planets 23° (Mercury) and 46° (Venus)

Interior
Limited to movement near the Sun Center their deferent centers along the Sun–Earth line
planets

Exterior Retrograde only at opposition,

Radii of epicycles aligned to the Sun–Earth line
planets when brightest

The geocentric model was eventually replaced by the heliocentric model. Copernican heliocentrism
could remove Ptolemy's epicycles because the retrograde motion could be seen to be the result of the
combination of the movements and speeds of Earth and planets. Copernicus felt strongly that equants
were a violation of Aristotelian purity, and proved that replacement of the equant with a pair of new
epicycles was entirely equivalent. Astronomers often continued using the equants instead of the
epicycles because the former was easier to calculate, and gave the same result.

It has been determined that the Copernican, Ptolemaic and even the Tychonic models provide
identical results to identical inputs: they are computationally equivalent. It was not until Kepler
demonstrated a physical observation that could show that the physical Sun is directly involved in
determining an orbit that a new model was required.

The Ptolemaic order of spheres from Earth outward is:[5]

1. Moon
 2. Mercury
3. Venus
4. Sun
5. Mars
6. Jupiter
7. Saturn
8. Fixed Stars
9. Primum Mobile ("First
Moved")
Ptolemy did not invent or Ptolemy thought the solar system looked like this
work out this order, which
aligns with the ancient
Seven Heavens religious cosmology common to the major Eurasian religious traditions. It also follows
the decreasing orbital periods of the Moon, Sun, planets and stars.

Persian and Arab astronomy and geocentrism

After the translation movement that included the translation of Almagest from Latin to Arabic,
Muslims adopted and refined the geocentric model of Ptolemy, which they believed correlated with
the teachings of Islam.[6][7][8] Muslim astronomers generally accepted the Ptolemaic system and the
geocentric model,[9] but by the 10th century, texts appeared regularly whose subject matter expressed
doubts concerning Ptolemy (shukūk).[10] Several Muslim scholars questioned Earth's apparent
immobility[11][12] and centrality within the universe.[13] Some Muslim astronomers believed that
Earth rotates around its axis, such as Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi (d. circa 1020).[14][15] According to al-Biruni,
Sijzi invented an astrolabe called al-zūraqī, based upon a belief held by some of his contemporaries
"that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky".[15][16] The
prevalence of this belief is further confirmed by a reference from the 13th century that states:

According to the geometers [or engineers] (muhandisīn), the Earth is in constant circular
motion, and what appears to be the motion of the heavens is actually due to the motion of
the Earth and not the stars.[15]

Early in the 11th century, Alhazen wrote a scathing critique of Ptolemy's model in his Doubts on
Ptolemy (c. 1028), which some have interpreted to imply he was criticizing Ptolemy's geocentrism,[17]
but most agree that he was actually criticizing the details of Ptolemy's model rather than his
geocentrism.[18]

In the 12th century, Arzachel departed from the ancient Greek idea of uniform circular motions by
hypothesizing that the planet Mercury moves in an elliptic orbit,[19][20] while Alpetragius proposed a
planetary model that abandoned the equant, epicycle and eccentric mechanisms,[21] though this
resulted in a system that was mathematically less accurate.[22] His alternative system spread through
most of Europe during the 13th century.[23]
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149–1209), in dealing with his conception of physics and the physical world in
his Matalib, rejects the Aristotelian and Avicennian notion of the Earth's centrality within the
universe, but instead argues that there are "a thousand thousand worlds (alfa alfi 'awalim) beyond
this world, such that each one of those worlds be bigger and more massive than this world, as well as
having the like of what this world has." To support his theological argument, he cites the Qur'anic
verse, "All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Worlds", emphasizing the term "Worlds".[13]

The "Maragha Revolution" refers to the Maragha school's revolution against Ptolemaic astronomy.
The "Maragha school" was an astronomical tradition beginning in the Maragha observatory and
continuing with astronomers from the Damascus mosque and Samarkand observatory. Like their
Andalusian predecessors, the Maragha astronomers attempted to solve the equant problem (the circle
around whose circumference a planet or the center of an epicycle was conceived to move uniformly)
and produce alternative configurations to the Ptolemaic model without abandoning geocentrism.
They were more successful than their Andalusian predecessors in producing non-Ptolemaic
configurations which eliminated the equant and eccentrics, were more accurate than the Ptolemaic
model in numerically predicting planetary positions, and were in better agreement with empirical
observations.[24] The most important of the Maragha astronomers included Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi
(died 1266), Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (1201–1274), Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311), Ibn al-Shatir
(1304–1375), Ali Qushji (c. 1474), Al-Birjandi (died 1525), and Shams al-Din al-Khafri (died 1550).[25]

However, the Maragha school never made the paradigm shift to heliocentrism.[26] The influence of
the Maragha school on Copernicus remains speculative, since there is no documentary evidence to
prove it. The possibility that Copernicus independently developed the Tusi couple remains open, since
no researcher has yet demonstrated that he knew about Tusi's work or that of the Maragha
school.[26][27]

Ptolemaic and rival systems

Not all Greeks agreed with the geocentric model. The Pythagorean system has already been
mentioned; some Pythagoreans believed the Earth to be one of several planets going around a central
fire.[28] Hicetas and Ecphantus, two Pythagoreans of the 5th century BC, and Heraclides Ponticus in
the 4th century BC, believed that the Earth rotated on its axis but remained at the center of the
universe.[29] Such a system still qualifies as geocentric. It was revived in the Middle Ages by Jean
Buridan. Heraclides Ponticus was once thought to have proposed that both Venus and Mercury went
around the Sun rather than the Earth, but it is now known that he did not.[30] Martianus Capella
definitely put Mercury and Venus in orbit around the Sun.[31] Aristarchus of Samos wrote a work,
which has not survived, on heliocentrism, saying that the Sun was at the center of the universe, while
the Earth and other planets revolved around it.[32] His theory was not popular, and he had one named
follower, Seleucus of Seleucia.[33] Epicurus was the most radical. He correctly realized in the 4th
century BC that the universe does not have any single center. This theory was widely accepted by the
later Epicureans and was notably defended by Lucretius in his poem De rerum natura.[34]
Copernican system
In 1543, the geocentric system met its first serious challenge with the publication of Copernicus' De
revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), which posited that
the Earth and the other planets instead revolved around the Sun. The geocentric system was still held
for many years afterwards, as at the time the Copernican system did not offer better predictions than
the geocentric system, and it posed problems for both natural philosophy and scripture. The
Copernican system was no more accurate than Ptolemy's system, because it still used circular orbits.
This was not altered until Johannes Kepler postulated that they were elliptical (Kepler's first law of
planetary motion).

Tychonic system
Tycho Brahe (1545-1601), made more accurate
determinations of the positions of planets and stars. He
sought the effect of stellar parallax, which would have been
empirically verifiable proof of the Earth's motion around the
Sun predicted by the Copernican model. Having observed no
effect, he rejected the idea of the Earth's motion.[35]

Consequently, he introduced a new system, the Tychonic

system, in which the Earth was still at the center of the
universe, and around it revolved the Sun, but all the other
planets revolved around the Sun in a set of epicycles. His
model considered both the benefits of the Copernican model
and the lack of evidence for the Earth's motion.[36]
In this depiction of the Tychonic system,
the objects on blue orbits (the Moon and
Observation by Galileo and abandonment of the the Sun) revolve around the Earth. The
objects on orange orbits (Mercury, Venus,
Ptolemaic model
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) revolve around
With the invention of the telescope in 1609, observations the Sun. Around all is a sphere of stars,
made by Galileo Galilei (such as that Jupiter has moons) which rotates.
called into question some of the tenets of geocentrism but
did not seriously threaten it. Because he observed dark
"spots" on the Moon, craters, he remarked that the moon was not a perfect celestial body as had been
previously conceived. This was the first detailed observation by telescope of the Moon's imperfections,
which had previously been explained by Aristotle as the Moon being contaminated by Earth and its
heavier elements, in contrast to the aether of the higher spheres. Galileo could also see the moons of
Jupiter, which he dedicated to Cosimo II de' Medici, and stated that they orbited around Jupiter, not
Earth.[37] This was a significant claim as it would mean not only that not everything revolved around
Earth as stated in the Ptolemaic model, but also showed a secondary celestial body could orbit a
moving celestial body, strengthening the heliocentric argument that a moving Earth could retain the
Moon.[38] Galileo's observations were verified by other astronomers of the time period who quickly
adopted use of the telescope, including Christoph Scheiner, Johannes Kepler, and Giovan Paulo
Lembo.[39]
In December 1610, Galileo Galilei used
his telescope to observe that Venus
showed all phases, just like the Moon.
He thought that while this observation
was incompatible with the Ptolemaic
system, it was a natural consequence of
the heliocentric system.

However, Ptolemy placed Venus' In 1610 Galileo Galilei observed with his telescope that Venus
deferent and epicycle entirely inside the showed phases, despite remaining near the Sun in Earth's sky (first
image). This proved that it orbits the Sun and not Earth, as
sphere of the Sun (between the Sun and
predicted by Copernican and Tychonic models, and disproved the
Mercury), but this was arbitrary; he
Ptolemaic one (second image).
could just as easily have swapped Venus
and Mercury and put them on the other
side of the Sun, or made any other arrangement of Venus and Mercury, as long as they were always
near a line running from the Earth through the Sun, such as placing the center of the Venus epicycle
near the Sun. In this case, if the Sun is the source of all the light, under the Ptolemaic system:

If Venus is between Earth and the Sun, the phase of Venus must always be crescent or all
dark. If Venus is beyond the Sun, the phase of Venus must always be gibbous or full.

But Galileo saw Venus at first small and full, and later large and crescent. This showed that with a
Ptolemaic cosmology, the Venus epicycle can be neither completely inside nor completely outside of
the orbit of the Sun. As a result, Ptolemaics abandoned the idea that the epicycle of Venus was
completely inside the Sun, and later 17th-century competition between astronomical cosmologies
focused on variations of the Tychonic or Copernican systems.

Historical positions of the Roman Catholic hierarchy

The famous Galileo affair pitted the geocentric model against the claims of Galileo. In regards to the
theological basis for such an argument, two Popes addressed the question of whether the use of
phenomenological language would compel one to admit an error in Scripture. Both taught that it
would not. Pope Leo XIII wrote:

we have to contend against those who, making an evil use of physical science, minutely
scrutinize the Sacred Book in order to detect the writers in a mistake, and to take occasion to
vilify its contents. ... There can never, indeed, be any real discrepancy between the theologian
and the physicist, as long as each confines himself within his own lines, and both are careful,
as St. Augustine warns us, "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as
known". If dissension should arise between them, here is the rule also laid down by St.
Augustine, for the theologian: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical
nature, we must show to be capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures; and whatever they
assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith,
we must either prove it as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without
the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so." To understand how just is the rule here
 formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the
Holy Ghost "Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the
essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto
salvation." Hence they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described
and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly
used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most
eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes
under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers-as the Angelic Doctor
also reminds us – "went by what sensibly appeared", or put down what God, speaking to
men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.

— Providentissimus Deus 18

Maurice Finocchiaro, author of a book on the Galileo affair, notes that this is "a view of the
relationship between biblical interpretation and scientific investigation that corresponds to the one
advanced by Galileo in the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina".[40] Pope Pius XII repeated his
predecessor's teaching:

The first and greatest care of Leo XIII was to set forth the teaching on the truth of the Sacred
Books and to defend it from attack. Hence with grave words did he proclaim that there is no
error whatsoever if the sacred writer, speaking of things of the physical order "went by what
sensibly appeared" as the Angelic Doctor says, speaking either "in figurative language, or in
terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use
at this day, even among the most eminent men of science". For "the sacred writers, or to
speak more accurately – the words are St. Augustine's – the Holy Spirit, Who spoke by them,
did not intend to teach men these things – that is the essential nature of the things of the
universe – things in no way profitable to salvation"; which principle "will apply to cognate
sciences, and especially to history", that is, by refuting, "in a somewhat similar way the
fallacies of the adversaries and defending the historical truth of Sacred Scripture from their
attacks".

— Divino afflante Spiritu, 3

In 1664, Pope Alexander VII republished the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books)
and attached the various decrees connected with those books, including those concerned with
heliocentrism. He stated in a papal bull that his purpose in doing so was that "the succession of things
done from the beginning might be made known [quo rei ab initio gestae series innotescat]".[41]

The position of the curia evolved slowly over the centuries towards permitting the heliocentric view.
In 1757, during the papacy of Benedict XIV, the Congregation of the Index withdrew the decree that
prohibited all books teaching the Earth's motion, although the Dialogue and a few other books
continued to be explicitly included. In 1820, the Congregation of the Holy Office, with the pope's
approval, decreed that Catholic astronomer Giuseppe Settele was allowed to treat the Earth's motion
as an established fact and removed any obstacle for Catholics to hold to the motion of the Earth:
 The Assessor of the Holy Office has referred the request of Giuseppe Settele, Professor of
Optics and Astronomy at La Sapienza University, regarding permission to publish his work
Elements of Astronomy in which he espouses the common opinion of the astronomers of our
time regarding the Earth’s daily and yearly motions, to His Holiness through Divine
Providence, Pope Pius VII. Previously, His Holiness had referred this request to the Supreme
Sacred Congregation and concurrently to the consideration of the Most Eminent and Most
Reverend General Cardinal Inquisitor. His Holiness has decreed that no obstacles exist for
those who sustain Copernicus' affirmation regarding the Earth's movement in the manner in
which it is affirmed today, even by Catholic authors. He has, moreover, suggested the
insertion of several notations into this work, aimed at demonstrating that the above
mentioned affirmation [of Copernicus], as it has come to be understood, does not present
any difficulties; difficulties that existed in times past, prior to the subsequent astronomical
observations that have now occurred. [Pope Pius VII] has also recommended that the
implementation [of these decisions] be given to the Cardinal Secretary of the Supreme
Sacred Congregation and Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace. He is now appointed the
task of bringing to an end any concerns and criticisms regarding the printing of this book,
and, at the same time, ensuring that in the future, regarding the publication of such works,
permission is sought from the Cardinal Vicar whose signature will not be given without the
authorization of the Superior of his Order.[42]

In 1822, the Congregation of the Holy Office removed the prohibition on the publication of books
treating of the Earth's motion in accordance with modern astronomy and Pope Pius VII ratified the
decision:

The most excellent [cardinals] have decreed that there must be no denial, by the present or
by future Masters of the Sacred Apostolic Palace, of permission to print and to publish works
which treat of the mobility of the Earth and of the immobility of the sun, according to the
common opinion of modern astronomers, as long as there are no other contrary indications,
on the basis of the decrees of the Sacred Congregation of the Index of 1757 and of this
Supreme [Holy Office] of 1820; and that those who would show themselves to be reluctant or
would disobey, should be forced under punishments at the choice of [this] Sacred
Congregation, with derogation of [their] claimed privileges, where necessary.[43]

The 1835 edition of the Catholic List of Prohibited Books for the first time omits the Dialogue from
the list.[40] In his 1921 papal encyclical, In praeclara summorum, Pope Benedict XV stated that,
"though this Earth on which we live may not be the center of the universe as at one time was thought,
it was the scene of the original happiness of our first ancestors, witness of their unhappy fall, as too of
the Redemption of mankind through the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ".[44] In 1965 the Second
Vatican Council stated that, "Consequently, we cannot but deplore certain habits of mind, which are
sometimes found too among Christians, which do not sufficiently attend to the rightful independence
of science and which, from the arguments and controversies they spark, lead many minds to conclude
that faith and science are mutually opposed."[45] The footnote on this statement is to Msgr. Pio
Paschini's, Vita e opere di Galileo Galilei, 2 volumes, Vatican Press (1964). Pope John Paul II
regretted the treatment that Galileo received, in a speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in
1992. The Pope declared the incident to be based on a "tragic mutual miscomprehension". He further
stated:

Cardinal Poupard has also reminded us that the sentence of 1633 was not irreformable, and
that the debate which had not ceased to evolve thereafter, was closed in 1820 with the
imprimatur given to the work of Canon Settele. ... The error of the theologians of the time,
when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the
physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture.
Let us recall the celebrated saying attributed to Baronius "Spiritui Sancto mentem fuisse nos
docere quomodo ad coelum eatur, non quomodo coelum gradiatur". In fact, the Bible does
not concern itself with the details of the physical world, the understanding of which is the
competence of human experience and reasoning. There exist two realms of knowledge, one
which has its source in Revelation and one which reason can discover by its own power. To
the latter belong especially the experimental sciences and philosophy. The distinction
between the two realms of knowledge ought not to be understood as opposition.[46]

Gravitation
Johannes Kepler analysed Tycho Brahe's famously accurate observations, and afterwards constructed
his three laws in 1609 and 1619, based upon a heliocentric model wherein the planets move in
elliptical paths. Using these laws, he was the first astronomer to successfully predict a transit of Venus
for the year 1631. The change from circular orbits to elliptical planetary paths dramatically improved
the accuracy of celestial observations and predictions. Because the heliocentric model devised by
Copernicus was no more accurate than Ptolemy's system, new observations were needed to persuade
those who still adhered to the geocentric model. However, Kepler's laws based upon Brahe's data
became a problem that geocentrists could not easily overcome.

In 1687, Isaac Newton stated the law of universal gravitation, which was described earlier as a
hypothesis by Robert Hooke and others. His main achievement was to mathematically derive Kepler's
laws of planetary motion from the law of gravitation, thus helping to prove the latter. This introduced
gravitation as the force which kept Earth and the planets moving through the universe, and also kept
the atmosphere from flying away. The theory of gravity allowed scientists to rapidly construct a
plausible heliocentric model for the Solar System. In his Principia, Newton explained his theory of
how gravity, previously thought to be a mysterious, unexplained occult force, directed the movements
of celestial bodies, and kept our Solar System in working order. His descriptions of centripetal
force[47] were a breakthrough in scientific thought, using the newly developed mathematical discipline
of differential calculus, finally replacing the previous schools of scientific thought, which had been
dominated by Aristotle and Ptolemy. However, the process was gradual.

Several empirical tests of Newton's theory, explaining the longer period of oscillation of a pendulum at
the equator and the differing size of a degree of latitude, would gradually become available between
1673 and 1738. In addition, stellar aberration was observed by Robert Hooke in 1674, and tested in a
series of observations by Jean Picard over a period of ten years, finishing in 1680. However, it was not
explained until 1729, when James Bradley provided an approximate explanation in terms of the
Earth's revolution about the Sun.

In 1838, astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel measured the parallax of the star 61 Cygni successfully,
and disproved Ptolemy's claim that parallax motion did not exist. This finally confirmed the
assumptions made by Copernicus, providing accurate, dependable scientific observations, and
conclusively displaying how distant stars are from Earth.

A geocentric frame is useful for many everyday activities and most laboratory experiments, but is a
less appropriate choice for Solar System mechanics and space travel. While a heliocentric frame is
most useful in those cases, galactic and extragalactic astronomy is easier if the Sun is treated as
neither stationary nor the center of the universe, but rather rotating around the center of our galaxy,
while in turn our galaxy is also not at rest in the cosmic background.

Relativity
Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld wrote in The Evolution of Physics (1938): "Can we formulate
physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only those moving uniformly,
but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? If this can be done, our difficulties will
be over. We shall then be able to apply the laws of nature to any CS. The struggle, so violent in the
early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless.
Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the Earth
moves', or 'the sun moves and the Earth is at rest', would simply mean two different conventions
concerning two different CS. Could we build a real relativistic physics valid in all CS; a physics in
which there would be no place for absolute, but only for relative, motion? This is indeed possible!"[48]

Despite giving more respectability to the geocentric view than Newtonian physics does,[49] relativity is
not geocentric. Rather, relativity states that the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, Jupiter, or any other point
for that matter could be chosen as a center of the Solar System with equal validity.[50]

Relativity agrees with Newtonian predictions that regardless of whether the Sun or the Earth are
chosen arbitrarily as the center of the coordinate system describing the Solar System, the paths of the
planets form (roughly) ellipses with respect to the Sun, not the Earth. With respect to the average
reference frame of the fixed stars, the planets do indeed move around the Sun, which due to its much
larger mass, moves far less than its own diameter and the gravity of which is dominant in determining
the orbits of the planets (in other words, the center of mass of the Solar System is near the center of
the Sun). The Earth and Moon are much closer to being a binary planet; the center of mass around
which they both rotate is still inside the Earth, but is about 4,624 km (2,873 miles) or 72.6% of the
Earth's radius away from the centre of the Earth (thus closer to the surface than the center).

What the principle of relativity points out is that correct mathematical calculations can be made
regardless of the reference frame chosen, and these will all agree with each other as to the predictions
of actual motions of bodies with respect to each other. It is not necessary to choose the object in the
Solar System with the largest gravitational field as the center of the coordinate system in order to
predict the motions of planetary bodies, though doing so may make calculations easier to perform or
interpret. A geocentric coordinate system can be more convenient when dealing only with bodies
mostly influenced by the gravity of the Earth (such as artificial satellites and the Moon), or when
calculating what the sky will look like when viewed from Earth (as opposed to an imaginary observer
looking down on the entire Solar System, where a different coordinate system might be more
convenient).

Religious and contemporary adherence to geocentrism

The Ptolemaic model held sway into the early modern age; from the late 16th century onward it was
gradually replaced as the consensus description by the heliocentric model. Geocentrism as a separate
religious belief, however, never completely died out. In the United States between 1870 and 1920, for
example, various members of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod published articles disparaging
Copernican astronomy and promoting geocentrism.[51] However, in the 1902 Theological Quarterly,
A. L. Graebner observed that the synod had no doctrinal position on geocentrism, heliocentrism, or
any scientific model, unless it were to contradict Scripture. He stated that any possible declarations of
geocentrists within the synod did not set the position of the church body as a whole.[52]

Articles arguing that geocentrism was the biblical perspective appeared in some early creation science
newsletters. Contemporary advocates for such religious beliefs include Robert Sungenis (author of the
2006 book Galileo Was Wrong and the 2014 pseudo-documentary film The Principle).[53] Most
contemporary creationist organizations reject such perspectives.[n 2] A few Orthodox Jewish leaders
maintain a geocentric model of the universe and an interpretation of Maimonides to the effect that he
ruled that the Earth is orbited by the Sun.[55][56] The Lubavitcher Rebbe also explained that
geocentrism is defensible based on the theory of relativity.[57] While geocentrism is important in
Maimonides' calendar calculations,[58] the great majority of Jewish religious scholars, who accept the
divinity of the Bible and accept many of his rulings as legally binding, do not believe that the Bible or
Maimonides command a belief in geocentrism.[56][59] There have been some modern Islamic scholars
who promoted geocentrism. One of them was Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, a Sunni scholar of the Indian
subcontinent. He rejected the heliocentric model and wrote a book[60] that explains the movement of
the sun, moon and other planets around the Earth.

According to a report released in 2014 by the National Science Foundation, 26% of Americans
surveyed believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth.[61] Morris Berman quotes a 2006 survey that
show currently some 20% of the U.S. population believe that the Sun goes around the Earth
(geocentricism) rather than the Earth goes around the Sun (heliocentricism), while a further 9%
claimed not to know.[62] Polls conducted by Gallup in the 1990s found that 16% of Germans, 18% of
Americans and 19% of Britons hold that the Sun revolves around the Earth.[63] A study conducted in
2005 by Jon D. Miller of Northwestern University, an expert in the public understanding of science
and technology,[64] found that about 20%, or one in five, of American adults believe that the Sun
orbits the Earth.[65] According to 2011 VTSIOM poll, 32% of Russians believe that the Sun orbits the
Earth.[66]
Planetariums
Many planetariums can switch between heliocentric and geocentric models.[67][68] In particular, the
geocentric model is still used for projecting the celestial sphere and lunar phases in education[69] and
sometimes for navigation.

See also
Aristotelian physics
Earth-centered, Earth-fixed coordinate system
History of the center of the Universe
Hollow Earth § Concave Hollow Earths
Religious cosmology
Sphere of fire
Wolfgang Smith, Catholic mathematician

Notes
1. This argument is given in Book I, Chapter 5, of the Almagest.[4]
2. Donald B. DeYoung, for example, states that "Similar terminology is often used today when we
speak of the sun's rising and setting, even though the earth, not the sun, is doing the moving.
Bible writers used the 'language of appearance', just as people always have. Without it, the
intended message would be awkward at best and probably not understood clearly. When the Bible
touches on scientific subjects, it is entirely accurate."[54]

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External links
Another demonstration of the complexity of observed orbits when assuming a geocentric model of
the Solar System (https://web.archive.org/web/20180901044431/http://www.astro.utoronto.ca/~zh
u/ast210/geocentric.html)
Geocentric Perspective animation of the Solar System in 150AD (http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.
edu/~pogge/Ast161/Movies/#ptolemaic)
Ptolemy’s system of astronomy (https://web.archive.org/web/20071015162256/http://library.thinkq
uest.org/29033/history/ptolemy.htm)
The Galileo Project – Ptolemaic System (http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/theories/ptolemaic_system.htm
l)

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