Achilles and the Tortoise
The fastest runner alive can never catch a tortoise with a head start. The argument is airtight. So where does it go wrong?
c. 450 BCE15 min read
Greek philosophy; the Lyceum
Aristotle
384 BCE – 322 BCE
Student of Plato and founder of the Lyceum. His Physics is the earliest surviving text to state Zeno's four arguments against motion, and his replies — that a length and the time to cross it are divisible in exactly the same way, and that an infinity of divisions is potential rather than actual — set the terms of the debate for the next two thousand years.
3 entries
Zeno's Dichotomy Paradox
To cross a room you must first cross half of it, then half of what is left, and so on without end. So how does anyone move?
c. 450 BCE18 min read
Buridan's Ass
A donkey stands exactly halfway between two identical bales of hay. With no reason on earth to prefer either, does it starve?
c. 1340 (the attribution; the example is far older)14 min read