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Achilles and the Tortoise (Posted on 2002-11-22) Difficulty: 3 of 5
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

See The Solution Submitted by Raveen    
Rating: 3.0769 (13 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
re: Why is this a paradox? | Comment 13 of 31 |
(In reply to Why is this a paradox? by Adam Champken)

even thinking mathematically, it does not reach infinity. Infinity is a limitless number and using the solution "simple" shows that this does have a limiting point. So in reality, no matter how you put this problem, it is really not a paradox.
  Posted by calla tah-n on 2003-05-23 10:58:06

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