Geocentrism Vs. Heliocentrism: Ancient Disputes
Overview
During the second century A.D., Greek-Egyptian astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy (100-170) summarized eight centuries of Greek geocentric (earth-centered) thought about the nature of the cosmos. Despite the heliocentric (sun-centered) theories of Aristarchus of Samos (320?-250? B.C.) and a few others, Ptolemaic geocentrism dominated Western astronomy until Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) proposed his heliocentric theory in the sixteenth century.
Background
In the sixth century B.C. the philosopher Pythagoras (580?-500 B.C.) founded a school of thought that concentrated on order, harmony, permanence, rationality, and regularity. His ideals were music and mathematics. Music was viewed as the origin and expression of harmony, and mathematics the rational explanation of music. Pythagoras believed that everything could be understood in terms of number, and therefore that everything is accessible to the mind, since the concept of number is intelligible. He posited a geocentric universe in which the Moon, Sun, and the five known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) all moved in perfect geometrical order by virtue of their natural and eternal mathematical relationships. He saw the geometry of space as "the music of the spheres," the ultimate harmony. He clearly recognized that the Earth is a sphere.
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