English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

heliocentric/ptolemaic theory
geocentric/copernican theory

2007-02-18 21:41:29 · 2 answers · asked by vandian 2 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

both are about and is connected to the solar system okay?......

2007-02-18 21:43:01 · update #1

2 answers

The geocentric system was the Ptolemaic one, heliocentric was Copernican.

The Ptolemaic system had the Earth at the centre of the universe, with the planets etc rotating around it in circles. Because the planets sometimes appear to go backwards, the system had to be modified by introducing "epicycles" so that the planets had circular orbits about points which themselves orbited the Earth in circles. This still didn't work, so some planets had epicycles on epicycles!

Copernicus put the sun at the centre, but still assumed circular orbits, so he still needed epicyles. The advantage was that he needed fewer of them, so his system was simpler even though it was still wrong.

2007-02-18 22:57:17 · answer #1 · answered by Iridflare 7 · 0 0

Heliocentric is the proven theory that all planets revolve around the sun. Geocentric was what Copernicus supposed, that the Sun and planets revolved around the Earth.

2007-02-19 05:45:48 · answer #2 · answered by gnomus12 6 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers