DIFFERENT

MODELS OF
THE

UNIVERSE

EUDOXUS
ARISTOTLE ARISTARCHUS
PTOLEMY
COPERNICUS

Submitted by:
MARJORIE A. VALIENTE
Gas 12-B
Submitted to:
SIR RAYMART TEORICA
PHYSICAL SCIENCE 12

EUDOXUS MODEL
Eudoxus of Cnidus (born c. 395 – 390
B.C.), a Greek astronomer and
mathematician, was the first to propose
a model of the universe based on
geometry

. This model composed of 27 concentric spheres with Earth as the center. The Sun, the Moon,
the planets, and the fixed stars have spheres. Each sphere is attached to a larger sphere through a
pole. The rotation of the spheres on their poles once every 24 hours accounts for the daily
rotation of the heavens.

ARISTOTLE'S MODEL
Aristotle (born c. 384 B.C.), a Greek
philosopher and astronomer, considered the model
proposed by Eudoxus, but he considered these spheres
as physical entities. He thought that these spheres were
filled with the divine and eternal “ether” that caused
the spheres to move.
 . This model composed of 56 spheres that guided the motion of the Sun, the Moon, and
five known planets. As the spheres move, they maintained the same distance from the Earth.
Also, they moved at constant speeds.

ARISTARCHUS MODEL
Aristarchus of Samos (born c. 310 B.C.), a Greek
astronomer and mathematician, was the first to hypothesize that
the Sun is the center of the universe. He visualized that the Moon
orbits around a spherical Earth which then revolves around the
Sun is the center of the universe.

.This model would be familiar to us today as a reasonable

description of the solar system. All the planets, including the
earth, revolved around a fixed Sun in circular orbits. The Earth
rotated once a day on its axis and the Moon revolved about the
Earth.

PTOLEMY'S MODEL
Claudius Ptolemy (born c. 90 A.D.), a
Greco-Egyptian astronomer and mathematician,
proposed his own geocentric (Earth-centered)
model of the universe. He acco upunted for the
apparent motions of the planets around the Earth
by assuming that each planet moved around a
sphere called an epicycle.

. In order to explain the motion of the planets,

Ptolemy combined eccentricity with an epicyclic
model. In the Ptolemaic system each planet revolves uniformly along a circular path (epicycle),
the centre of which revolves around Earth along a larger circular path (deferent).

COPERNICUS' MODEL
Nicolaus Copernicus, a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer born in Poland, ended the
geocentric astronomy era by publishing his work On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
wherein he explained that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the universe. In his work, he
reiterated the ancient Greek concept that the motion of spherical heavenly bodies is uniform,
eternal, and circular.

.This model positioned the Sun at the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the
other planets orbiting
around it in circular
paths, modified by
epicycles, and at
uniform speeds.