Geocentrism: Theory that Earth is the centre of the Universe

Geocentrists accept that the Earth is round. Before the 16th century, most people believed in the theory of geocentrism. From Earth, it looks like the Sun and stars are moving across the sky. 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. In about 150 AD, Ptolemy wrote a book to explain in great detail how the spherical Earth is surrounded by things that move in the sky. Ptolemy’s geocentric model was adopted and refined during the Islamic Golden Age, which Muslims believed correlated with the teachings of Islam. From the time of Ptolemy through to the 16th century AD, educated people who knew the Earth is round almost always believed in Ptolemy’s geocentric theory.

From the 15th to the 17th century, astronomers, especially Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, found evidence that the Earth is not fixed but moves round the Sun. That is called heliocentrism.

• Flat Earth