Suppose that the swift Achilles is having a race with a tortoise. Since the tortoise is much slower, she gets a head start. When the tortoise has reached a given point a, Achilles starts. But by the time Achilles reaches a, the tortoise has already moved beyond point a, to point b. And by the time Achilles reaches b the tortoise has already moved a little bit farther along, to point c. Since this process goes on indefinitely, Achilles can never catch up with the tortoise.

How can this be?

Taken from - http://members.aol.com/kiekeben/zeno.html

This "paradox" relies on the assumption that time and motion do not advance in discreet quantities.

Claiming the definition of Zeno's paradox is really no solution unless the puzzle is to identify what historical paradox this is.

Posted by whome? on 2005-01-23 19:57:49