Question for the maths whizziz.

[Woodsey]

Holy shit, this is the last thread I should have looked at after a bottle of wine 

[gatso]

no need for the pauses. google zeno's dichotomy paradox. you can also check out his arrow paradox to show that you can't move towards wherever it was you were going at all

[gatso]

and while you're there check out achiles and the tortoise which I'd forgotten about to see that no matter how fast you're going you can't catch a tortoise

[RED-DOG]

and while you're there check out achiles and the tortoise which I'd forgotten about to see that no matter how fast you're going you can't catch a tortoise

In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise


Yes. that illustrates exactly what I was trying to say. We think alike, me an ole Zeno.

[Bongo]

Or radioisotopes and their half lives.

[Shogun112]

I was running around a field when this question occurred to me.

If I had a rope that was 100ft long and I laid it out in a circle, and then I got another 100ft rope and laid it out in a square, and then I got another rope and laid it out so that it was exactly one foot inside the circle all the way around, and then I got another rope and laid it out so that it was exactly one foot inside the square on all sides...

Which of the inner ropes would be the longest and by how much?

All ropes are 100ft long...  Therefore.. None is longer than the other..!!