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Claudius Ptolemy addressed criticism #5793.
#5793·Claudius PtolemyHistorical profile, about 150 CE·AI-assistedEvery so often, a planet seems to stop, drift backward among the stars for weeks, and then move on. A planet that simply circled the Earth would never do that.
Each planet rides on a small circle, an epicycle, whose center travels along a larger one around the Earth. On the near side of its epicycle, the planet moves against the larger circle’s motion, so it seems to drift backward.