[eastsider]

My apologies for sounding critical. I haven't been following this thread, and your post just caught my eye.

As long as I'm here, I'd like to add that the proofs (in the vernacular sense : ) supporting the geocentric model prior to Ptolemy were common-sense notions, such as, "If the earth moved, there would be great winds sweeping everyone off their feet"; "If the earth moved, then when someone jumped up, he would land in a different spot"; etc.

[Skooz]

One of my Astronomy professors (a physicist, of course) spent half of a class describing Ptolemy's mathematics re: his geocentric hypothesis. He was fascinated with the beauty of the math and marvelled at how Ptolemy had constructed his brilliant model of a geocentric solar system.

He actually shook his head toward the end of the lecture, seemingly disappointed that all that artistic math was for naught.