ptolemaic

These sorts of workarounds are to Unix as epicycles were to Ptolemaic astronomy -- evidence that the foundation is flawed.

I suspect that quantum theory is like Ptolemaic epicycles: a great way to mathematically describe observed reality, but fundamentally incorrect.

But obviously the Ptolemaic model should not be thought in astronomy classes as if it was valid science.

Copernicus's big win is getting rid of the equant, easily the most mathematically ugly thing in the Ptolemaic system.

Edit: As Eru points out, the Ptolemaic system basically uses the Fourier transform to represent paths.

A system of Ptolemaic circles can approximate the paths taken by any system.

Too many levels of epicycles made the Ptolemaic model look rather inelegant.

Without other stars (and our rather extraordinary moon), it would take a lot longer than 1500 years to break out of the Ptolemaic mindset.

That is arguably worse than those who accepted the Ptolemaic model - for one thing, they could at least see that the Sun was rising and setting.

Even specifically, the Newtonian/Keplerian system has the constrain of the sun being stationary as much as the Ptolemaic system has the constraint of the earth being stationary.

And I would like to offer that this idea of a world of accelerated change might in fact be a self-serving, Ptolemaic fantasy of omnipotence.

That's more like pre-scientific Ptolemaic reasoning.

PDF "The Introductory Statistics Course: A Ptolemaic Curriculum?" by George W.

E: The important takeaway: "It has been determined, in fact, that the Copernican, Ptolemaic and even the Tychonic models provided identical results to identical inputs.

For example, the Ptolemaic system could approximate the movement of the planets to any degree if you added enough "wheels within wheels" but since these were "the wrong wheels", the necessary wheels grew without bounds to achieve reasonable approximation over time.

The author would do well to study fundamental principles of statistics by reading the online articles "Advice to Mathematics Teachers on Evaluating Introductory Statistics Textbooks"[5] and "The Introductory Statistics Course: A Ptolemaic Curriculum?"[6] to wrap his mind around how strictly necessary it is to have a valid data-gathering plan before engaging in any statistical manipulation of the data.

Ptolemaic geocentrism, particularly, had a lot of ad hoc modifications to explain the loopy movement of planets.

I doubt you could do something like that with the Copernican, Ptolemaic, or even the Keplerian model.