GEOCENTRIC
Ancient Civilisations
Romans and Greeks knew about planets you could see without a
telescope (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). They
could also see the Sun and Moon from Earth.
This led them to believe that Earth was the centre of all
these things.that this was so important that they
They thought
named
the days of the week after the planets and the
Why
godsnot research the names of Roman and Greek gods
and see where
associated with they fitplanets:
these in with days of the week and
the
planets?
Monday – In TheEnglish,
Moonsome days were named after the Norse
gods rather –
Tuesday than Roman
Mars inWhich
or Greek.
(Mardi day do you think
French)
belongs
Wednesday to–Thor?
Mercury (Mercredi in French)
Thursday – Jupiter (Jeudi in French)
Friday – Venus (Vendredi in French)
Saturday – Saturn
Sunday – The Sun
Aristotle (350 B.C.)
Greek
• Formulated a picture of the solar system
that put Earth at its center with all the
other heavenly bodies orbiting around it.
• GEOCENTRIC model
• The orbits were described as perfect circles.
Geocentric Model
Geocentric Model of the Universe
Stationary Earth
All other objects circle the Earth.
Universe consisted of stars, six planets (none beyond Saturn), the Sun
and Moon.
Stars were fixed onto a crystal sphere that surrounded the Earth.
Since the sphere rotated around the Earth, so did the stars.
Geocentric Model of the Universe
• Planets shift slowly eastward relative to the fixed stars.
• Planets were also observed to occasionally move “backwards” (east
to west or westward with respect to the background stars)
• This was called retrograde motion.
• This was a problem to explain.
As the Earth rotates during the night
(diurnal motion) the planet appears to
move from east to west.
• The ancient Greeks knew that the planets slowly
shifted relative to the fixed stars in the constellations.
• From night to night, the planets appear to move from west
to east relative to the background stars (direct motion).
But sometimes, the planet would slow down, stop and reverse its motion from
east to west relative to the background stars (retrograde motion).
Early models of the universe attempted to explain the
motion of the five visible planets against the
background of “fixed” stars. The main problem was
that the planets do not move uniformly against the
background of stars, but instead appear to stop, move
backward, then move forward again. This backward
motion is referred to as retrograde motion.
Ptolemy’s Role in the
Geocentric Model
1st Century
Geocentric Model of the Universe
• Hipparcus was first to use epicycles to address the problem of
retrograde motion of the planets.
• Ptolemy expanded upon this.
• Ptolemy determined that retrograde motion of planets could be
described by using deferents (orbital path around Earth) and epicycles
(planet’s orbital path around the deferent).
• All orbits, deferents and epicycles were in perfect circles.
Epicycles and Deferents
Ptolemy explained this motion using a geocentric (Earth-centered) model of
the solar system in which the planets orbited the Earth indirectly, by
moving on epicycles which in turn orbited the Earth.
Ptolemy expanded upon Hipparcus’s work
Occam’s Razor: the best explanation is the simplest
Epicycles and Deferents
Stop the madness!
The “Wanderers”
• The Greeks continued to watch the night sky
• The Sun, moon, stars moved predictable orbit in the sky.
• BUT, there were five “objects” that did not follow this regular, predictable motion
• Once every year, they’d move BACKWARDS (retrograde) for a month or two!!
• They “wandered”, thus called planetes
(Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter Saturn)
Problems with Ptolemaic model
• Inconsistent use a various devices (eccentric, deferent, equant)
• Centers of the epicycles for Mercury and Venus are fixed on a line
joining the Sun and Earth
• Theory did not fit data as accuracy of observations increased
• Assumption of uniform circular motion not based on observations but
on philosophy
