Why did everyone think earth was the center of the Universe?

Answer 1

Many people did during the Scientific Revolution (and before that), because it was in The Bible, therefore making it God's word. This is called the geocentric theory. Nicolaus Copernicus was the one to overturn this, proposing that the Sun was actually at the center of the universe. This is called the heliocentric theory.

Answer 2

Because it isn't correct. The Sun does not go around the Earth; the Earth goes around the Sun.

This is not to say that the geocentric version isn't useful; there are many places in which a geocentric viewpoint makes the mathematics easier. Celestial navigation is a good case in point; the math in a heliocentric world is a nightmare, while cel nav using geocentric coordinates is fairly simple. And generally, close enough.

Again, although considered close enough, the Earth doesn't actually orbit the sun either. The sun, the Earth and all planets orbit the gravitational centre of the solar system which just happens to be inside the sun. Apart from the Earth's slightly elliptical orbit around this centre, the sun is just a little further away when the Earth is between Jupiter (the largest planet) and the sun and just a little closer when Jupiter is on the other side of the sun to us.

Answer 3

When Christopher Columbus started thinking it was round, and everyone thought he was crazy. But Columbus inspired a sailor, and that was Magellan. Magellan set off around the world with five ships. The Conception, the San Antonio, the Santiago, the Trinidad and the Victoria. He sailed round the world, although by the time the got to the Philippines there were only 3 ships. Magellan himself was killed in a war at the Philippines and was burnt in his ship. Only one ship ever made it back to Spain, and that was the Victoria. Out of 250 men, 18 survived the trip. That is how people started to believe that the world was round.

Answer 4

This theory has been around since before written history. Most cultures observe the apparent motion of the sun and stars, and the apparent stillness of the ground, and reasonable suppose the heavenly bodies to move around the earth.

So there is no known person who first produced this theory.

The more complex model of interacting epicycles about a central Earth is due to Ptolomy.

Answer 5

It certainly looks that way. You can't feel the movement of the Earth around the Sun, the movement of the Solar System around the Milky Way, etc.

It certainly looks that way. You can't feel the movement of the Earth around the Sun, the movement of the Solar System around the Milky Way, etc.

It certainly looks that way. You can't feel the movement of the Earth around the Sun, the movement of the Solar System around the Milky Way, etc.

It certainly looks that way. You can't feel the movement of the Earth around the Sun, the movement of the Solar System around the Milky Way, etc.

Answer 6

There is just one prime weakness, which is that it does not correspond to reality. All evidence shows that the geocentric model is simply not a good representation of the Solar System, therefore it has been discarded.

Answer 7

The early Greeks - at least, the astronomers and scientists - knew that the Earth was spherical, and had calculated its size pretty accurately. It was probably thePhoenicianswho first figured it out, somewhere before 600BCE.

Answer 8

Because if you just go outside and take a look, that's obviously what's happening.

Everything you can see in the sky ... every star, every planet, the sun and the moon,

all turn around overhead every day and night. Your own eyes show you exactly what's

going on.

Except that they're wrong. But that's a lot harder to demonstrate.

Answer 9

Because a heliocentric explanation of the solar system fit the observed facts more closely than a geocentric explanation.

Which is not to say that a geocentric explanation is not useful. I spent several years in the U.S. Navy teaching celestial navigation. Assuming that the Earth is stationary and that the Sun, Moon and stars revolve around the Earth actually makes the math of navigation easier than trying to do the math from a heliocentric perspective.

Which does not make it "true"; just "useful".

Answer 10

For centuries, Church doctrine placed the earth at the center of creation. The position was observationallly "obvious" because clearly everything that could be seen in the heavens moved around the oberver's position on earth. The heliocentric model flew in the face of the "obvious" and it falsified Biblical notions of our world as the center of creation. Anything which put Church dogma into question was a danger to the Church's position as arbiter of all thought, so by extension, proved to be a very real danger to the well-being of the progenitors of such "heresies."