How can Planets be in Retrograde? Geocentrism Explained

Ancient humans really wanted Earth to be the center of the universe. Geocentrism wasn't a mistake. Ptolemy wasn't that far off from the truth. He just gave Earth too much importance.

Nick Lucid - Host/Writer/Editor/Animator
Sean Reese - Researcher

If you want to play around with the simulation near the end of the video:
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TIME CODES

00:00 Cold Open
00:42 History of Geocentrism
02:21 Retrograde Motion
03:52 Ptolemy's Epicycles
06:29 Geocentrism isn't the Problem
08:58 Sponsor Message
09:50 Outro
10:09 Featured Comment

[stephenjackson]

Every point is the center of the universe. The math can always be made to work. It's just that some assumptions make it a bit less complicated.

[leamsiever]

I always thought that it's valid to se the earth as the center of the solar system but could not imagine in my head how all the sun/planets movement would look like, interesting video, thanks.

[playgroundchooser]

Nick, you're on a roll with absolute bangers man! Such good stuff!!
I especially like the "as long as the Sun still controls everything, you can make the center of the Solar System anywhere you'd like" part.

[WojciechDomalewski]

Now the center of my Universe is my cup of tea. Thank you very much for your work.

[mdnayem]

I knew earth can be a center for the universe if looked from a perspective, just couldn't do the math and imagination of what the orbitals would looked like, thanks for the nice demonstration.

[blackshard]

I believe the shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism is one of the most instructive lessons there is for teaching the philosophy of science. Both are equally valid centers. And yet neither is, because the same is true of every other point in the universe. "Truth" and "knowledge" become such interesting and nuanced concepts, radically unmoored from the idea of a singular objective perspective naively implied by those words, and yet that intractable subjectivity makes the human accomplishment that is science so much more impressive. Just because our reference frame is subjective doesn't mean that anything goes. It just means there are many angles from which to approach reality.

[david]

I want to see an animation for the geocentric orbit for all the planets at once and see what crazy shape it draws, i thought that is what we were gonna get

[narfwhals]

This is a really important thing to realize about reference frames. Nice video!
Also, the orbits _do_ have a certain beauty from different reference frames if we track them long enough. (if we ignore certain messinesses). Venus makes a very nice 5 petal shape.

[horizonbrave]

"Where were you going with this??" I ask this about myself when I open up my mouth, daily

[skibidiCornPop]

Gotta admit the heliocentric view of the sky as the ground moves is awesome. Imagine falling up off the earth as it rotated like there was no gravity 😅

[gingerr]

“The moon and the sun were re-classified and we don’t think less of them” 🙌 Words to live by. Knowledge is ever growing and so are people.

[popcornpower]

Finally, someone who understands frame of reference when it comes to "center." No one ever understood the nuance of this position.

[ThePeshMod]

Due to the observational event horizon, I am literally the center of my own universe 😊

[eigenchris]

As someone who has made a bunch of relativity videos, the phrase "the sun is the center of the solar system" has often made me nervous. I guess it's a fine thing to say in casual conversation. But as you say, you can put the "center" of your reference frame wherever you like!

[hopolo]

8:15 so cool, man
5:12 also very cool

[sorak]

The last time I was this early, I had a clever comment to post...

[cherubinth]

Not to forget that the heliocentric models had wrong predictions until Kepler fixed them with ellipsis.

[johnedwards]

What a terrific channel. I'd watch television again if they had shows like this.

[PhilipSmolen]

Thank you. I have always wanted to see that Earth centric animation. I haven't seen it anywhere else.

[davebennett]

that's pretty neato. i appreciate validating the processes people go through to reach wrong conclusions. sometimes they're wrong but that's still as right as they can possibly be with the information at hand!