The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ptolemaic \Ptol`e*ma"ic\, a. Of or pertaining to Ptolemy, the geographer and astronomer.
Ptolemaic system (Astron.), the system maintained by Ptolemy, who supposed the earth to be fixed in the center of the universe, with the sun and stars revolving around it. This theory was received for ages, until superseded by the Copernican system.
Usage examples of "ptolemaic system".
Instead, Copernicus was motivated by the fundamentally ad hoc nature of the Ptolemaic system.
It contains a series of dialogues that pit a supporter of the Ptolemaic system, named Simplicius, against a more astute supporter of Copernicus.
The Ptolemaic system, Copernicanism, Galilean relativity, the electromagnetic theory, Einsteinean relativity, Haertelism, these are all obvious examples.
There are anachronisms in philosophy, quite as much as in other sciences, and the spirit in which certain philosophical problems have of late been treated, both in England and in Germany, is really no better than a revival of the Ptolemaic system would be in astronomy.
There were those scientists, for instance, who clung to the Ptolemaic System of the universe.
Incidentally, new facts were learned about the nature, size, and form of the earth, and the Ptolemaic system went glimmering.