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

(In reply to Why is this a paradox? by Adam Champken)

The problem here considers a smaller and smaller time frame, that is the key to breaking the 'paradox'. It is not really a paradox at all if the time frame is consistent since Achilles will overtake at some exact point in time. The problem only considers portions of time up to this point, so it seems as though the faster will not win.

Posted by Chris on 2003-03-12 23:06:09