You can never catch up.
In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.
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You cannot even start.
That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.
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You cannot even move.
If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless.
2006-11-05 05:12:41 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
from Aristotle Physics VI:9, 239b5, 10, 15
Just saying it is BS does not quite argue the point.
2006-11-05 05:25:52 · update #1
The flaw in that sort of reasoning is due to the untrue assumption that the solution of all infinite series is infinite. For example, the sum of the series
1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8...
has infinite terms, but a finite solution of 1. Applied to time and distance, your problems are solved.
Gary H
2006-11-05 06:03:09 · answer #1 · answered by Gary H 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
These are some of the oldest paradoxes that philosophers have debated for thousands of years. They are not really phrased properly as scientific questions, particularly the last one.
Personally I think that the quantum nature of reality probably overcomes these considerations. As you approach something to overtake them, there will eventually come a point when you are so close that the distance is not significantly greater than the Planck distance, the distance at which it is meaningless to describe the position of any object more accurately - that is, you will be close enough that you cannot say with any meaningful truth who is ahead and who is behind. These questions are really just very early examples of how Newtonian physics doesn't completely describe the real, physical world in all circumstances.
2006-11-05 13:22:38 · answer #2 · answered by dm_cork 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ah yes, good old Zeno and his paradoxes. The reason that these observations are not true is that they assume that space can be infinately divided. In the real world any distance smaller than a couple of atoms is negligable.
2006-11-05 13:24:43 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Your logic is faulty if you use a similar plane of reference for all examples. This sounds like BS, but stand in the path of a moving arrow and see and feel what happens.
2006-11-05 13:15:49 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋