Assiduous as Ptolemy may have been in the study of the heavenly bodies, it seems evident that he cannot have devoted much thought to the phenomena of motion of terrestrial objects.  Simple, indeed, are the experiments which might have convinced a philosopher much less acute than Ptolemy, that, if the earth did revolve, the air must necessarily accompany it.  If a rider galloping on horseback tosses a ball into the air, it drops again into his hand, just as it would have done had he been remaining at rest during the ball’s flight; the ball in fact participates in the horizontal motion, so that though it really describes a curve as any passer-by would observe, yet it appears to the rider himself merely to move up and down in a straight line.  This fact, and many others similar to it, demonstrate clearly that if the earth were endowed with a movement of rotation, the atmosphere surrounding it must participate in that movement.  Ptolemy did not know this, and consequently he came to the conclusion that the earth did not rotate, and that, therefore, notwithstanding the tremendous improbability of so mighty an object as the celestial sphere spinning round once in every twenty-four hours, there was no course open except to believe that this very improbable thing did really happen.  Thus it came to pass that Ptolemy adopted as the cardinal doctrine of his system a stationary earth poised at the centre of the celestial sphere, which stretched around on all sides at a distance so vast that the diameter of the earth was an inappreciable point in comparison therewith.

Ptolemy having thus deliberately rejected the doctrine of the earth’s rotation, had to make certain other entirely erroneous suppositions.  It was easily seen that each star required exactly the same period for the performance of a complete revolution of the heavens.  Ptolemy knew that the stars were at enormous distances from the earth, though no doubt his notions on this point came very far short of what we know to be the reality.  If the stars had been at very varied distances, then it would be so wildly improbable that they should all accomplish their revolutions in the same time, that Ptolemy came to the conclusion that they must be all at the same distance, that is, that they must be all on the surface of a sphere.  This view, however erroneous, was corroborated by the obvious fact that the stars in the constellations preserved their relative places unaltered for centuries.  Thus it was that Ptolemy came to the conclusion that they were all fixed on one spherical surface, though we are not informed as to the material of this marvellous setting which sustained the stars like jewels.