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Where's the Bee facing? (Posted on 2002-04-27) Difficulty: 4 of 5
Remember the busy Bee? The one that kept flying from the bicyclist to his home and back as he approached it?

Well, at the instant when the person finally got to his house, which way was the Bee facing? (Assume that the Bee's turns are instantaneous - that it can go from facing the house to facing the cyclist in no time.)

  Submitted by levik    
Rating: 4.0000 (11 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
This is a paradox (as the category implies).

The bee will be making an infinite series of turns before the biker gets home. We can assign each leg of its flight a number stating from one:

 1. B---------->H
 2.   B<--------H
 3.      B----->H
and so on.

Since there are an infinity of these short flights, there will be a one to one correspondence between them and the infinity of counting numbers.

To say that at the end of infinity the bee is facing either the biker or the house would be to imply that the last counting number is either even or odd.

Which is of course impossible given that there is no last counting number.

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
Solutionsolution to the problemK Sengupta2007-04-17 11:20:54
I agree with the solutionAlexis2005-11-02 15:49:19
Zeno's Paradox of MotionJenny Turner2004-06-05 04:39:36
Basic ideaGamer2003-10-19 22:09:23
Backwardsvlad2003-10-09 09:51:43
re:RoyCook2003-10-06 13:18:56
re: don't believe the given solution is correctBruno2003-09-30 12:27:10
don't believe the given solution is correctluke2003-09-07 16:44:42
SolutionNo Subjectsam2003-09-06 15:54:13
SolutionChaz2003-05-03 09:05:51
Spinning?Becky2003-04-22 10:22:17
Hints/Tipsre: Weird IdeaGamer2003-03-07 12:40:03
Some ThoughtsWeird IdeaGobleteer2002-09-27 11:14:51
ParadoxJustin Ryan Grenier2002-09-26 07:44:54
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