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?

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The question does not even resemble the "cant reach the wall going half way each time" problem
The turtle would win in that situation if he kept a constant rate of acceleration and achilles ran at a constant unchanging velocity(even if faster than the turtle)

Posted by Evan on 2003-08-20 05:51:53