• thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I hated this “paradox” from the first time I encountered it sometime in grade school. I didn’t have the mathematical language for it at the time, but I distinctly remember arguing that as the number of intervals increases, the time to move one subdivision decreases, so there is no paradox at all. Basically, it doesn’t take much creativity to have a qualitative feeling for the concept of a convergent infinite series (which is what this is), but the teacher insisted it was a paradox, I couldn’t prove them wrong, and it frustrated the crap out of me.

    • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      One of the definitions of paradox is a thing you know for sure is wrong, but can’t disprove it. Zeno knew Acchiles would reach the turtle in his paradox somehow, but without calculus (or algebra, for that matter) he couldn’t explain it

  • Akasazh@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Time for the Feynman defense stain that even though it seems like objects touch, there’s no connection between the atoms of both objects (which is knife of why Zeno’s paradox is ultimately true)