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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: It Can't | Comment 18 of 31 |
(In reply to It Can't by Matthew Bobbins)

I agree with Matthew in that it can't be. First of all, it was stated that the tortoise is much slower than the swift Achilles. Well, if he's slower, there is so way that just because he had a head start he would always be able to keep the same distance between himself and Achilles.
  Posted by michelle on 2003-11-11 18:30:42

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