The theory that the Earth was the center of the universe was developed by Claudius Ptolemy, a Greco-Roman astronomer and mathematician, who lived in the 2nd century AD.

His theory, known as the geocentric model, was presented in his book Almagest. This model was widely accepted for centuries, and it was only challenged by the heliocentric model (sun-centered) proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century.