| Ptolemy lived in the great city of knowledge and education during the first and second century, Alexandria, Egypt. He was an astronomer, mathemetician, and geographer. He codified the accepted Greek view of the universe at the time which said that the Earth was the center of the universe with the sun, moon and other planet revolving around our home planet. This would be the standard for our solar system until Copernicus in the mid 1500's and his sun-centered universe. Of course, Ptolemy knew the earth was a sphere and was very important in geography and cartography. His work Geography was the prime text of the day up until the time of Columbus. Although, his solar system theory was of course, wrong, it is actually more accurate than Copernicus' as far as explaining the motion of the planets. It wasn't until Kepler that Copernicus' theories would make sense. It is not known if Ptolemy actually believed in his earth-centered system; he may have just used it as a means to explain the motions of the planets in his day. He was also an astrologer which was quite important, then. |
