Zeno's paradoxes

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"Arrow paradox" redirects here. For other uses, see Arrow paradox (disambiguation).
Zeno's paradoxes are a set of philosophical problems generally thought to have been devised
by Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (c. 490–430 BC) to support Parmenides' doctrine that
contrary to the evidence of one's senses, the belief in plurality and change is mistaken, and in
particular that motion is nothing but an illusion. It is usually assumed, based
on Plato'sParmenides (128a–d), that Zeno took on the project of creating
these paradoxes because other philosophers had created paradoxes against Parmenides' view.
Thus Plato has Zeno say the purpose of the paradoxes "is to show that their hypothesis that
existences are many, if properly followed up, leads to still more absurd results than the
hypothesis that they are one."[1] Plato has Socrates claim that Zeno and Parmenides were
essentially arguing exactly the same point.[2]
Some of Zeno's nine surviving paradoxes (preserved
in Aristotle's Physics[3][4] and Simplicius's commentary thereon) are essentially equivalent to one
another. Aristotle offered a refutation of some of them.[3] Three of the strongest and most
famous—that of Achilles and the tortoise, the Dichotomy argument, and that of an arrow in
flight—are presented in detail below.
Zeno's arguments are perhaps the first examples of a method of proof called reductio ad
absurdum also known as proof by contradiction. They are also credited as a source of
the dialecticmethod used by Socrates.[5]
Some mathematicians and historians, such as Carl Boyer, hold that Zeno's paradoxes are simply
mathematical problems, for which modern calculus provides a mathematical
solution.[6] Some philosophers, however, say that Zeno's paradoxes and their variations
(see Thomson's lamp) remain relevant metaphysical problems.[7][8][9]
The origins of the paradoxes are somewhat unclear. Diogenes Laërtius, a fourth source for
information about Zeno and his teachings, citing Favorinus, says that Zeno's teacher Parmenides
was the first to introduce the Achilles and the tortoise paradox. But in a later passage, Laërtius
attributes the origin of the paradox to Zeno, explaining that Favorinus disagrees.[10]

Contents

 1Paradoxes of motion
o 1.1Achilles and the tortoise
o 1.2Dichotomy paradox
o 1.3Arrow paradox
 2Three other paradoxes as given by Aristotle
o 2.1Paradox of Place
o 2.2Paradox of the Grain of Millet
o 2.3The Moving Rows (or Stadium)
 3Proposed solutions
o 3.1Diogenes the Cynic
o 3.2Aristotle
o 3.3Thomas Aquinas
o 3.4Archimedes
o 3.5Bertrand Russell
o 3.6Nick Huggett
o 3.7Peter Lynds
o 3.8Hermann Weyl
 4The paradoxes in modern times
 5A similar ancient Chinese philosophic consideration
 6Quantum Zeno effect
 7Zeno behaviour
 8See also
 9Notes
 10References
 11External links

Paradoxes of motion[edit]
Achilles and the tortoise[edit]
"Achilles and the Tortoise" redirects here. For other uses, see Achilles and the Tortoise
(disambiguation).

Distance vs. time, assuming the tortoise to run at Achilles' half speed

Achilles and the tortoise

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.

— as recounted by Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b15

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 meters, for example. Supposing 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 meters, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time,
the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 meters. 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
arrives somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has some distance to go before he can even
reach the tortoise.[11]
Dichotomy paradox[edit]
That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.

— as recounted by Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10

Suppose Homer wishes to walk to the end of a path. Before he can get there, he must get
halfway there. Before he can get halfway there, he must get a quarter of the way there. Before
traveling a quarter, he must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on.

The dichotomy, both versions

The resulting sequence can be represented as:

This description requires one to complete an infinite number of tasks, which Zeno maintains
is an impossibility.[12]
This sequence also presents a second problem in that it contains no first distance to run, for
any possible (finite) first distance could be divided in half, and hence would not be first after
all. Hence, the trip cannot even begin. The paradoxical conclusion then would be that travel
over any finite distance can neither be completed nor begun, and so all motion must be
an illusion. An alternative conclusion, proposed by Henri Bergson, is that motion (time and
distance) is not actually divisible.
This argument is called the Dichotomy because it involves repeatedly splitting a distance into
two parts. It contains some of the same elements as the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox,
but with a more apparent conclusion of motionlessness. It is also known as the Race
Course paradox. Some, like Aristotle, regard the Dichotomy as really just another version
of Achilles and the Tortoise.[13]
Arrow paradox[edit]
 The arrow

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.[14]

— as recounted by Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b5

In the arrow paradox, Zeno states that for motion to occur, an object must change the
position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any
one (duration-less) instant of time, the arrow is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it
is not.[15] It cannot move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it
cannot move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words, at every instant of
time there is no motion occurring. If everything is motionless at every instant, and time is
entirely composed of instants, then motion is impossible.
Whereas the first two paradoxes divide space, this paradox starts by dividing time—and not
into segments, but into points.[16]

Three other paradoxes as given by Aristotle[edit]

Paradox of Place[edit]
From Aristotle:
If everything that exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on ad infinitum.[17]

Paradox of the Grain of Millet[edit]

Description of the paradox from the Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy:
The argument is that a single grain of millet makes no sound upon falling, but a thousand
grains make a sound. Hence a thousand nothings become something, an absurd
conclusion.[18]
Aristotle's refutation:
Zeno is wrong in saying that there is no part of the millet that does not make a sound: for
there is no reason why any such part should not in any length of time fail to move the air that
the whole bushel moves in falling. In fact it does not of itself move even such a quantity of
the air as it would move if this part were by itself: for no part even exists otherwise than
potentially.[19]
Description from Nick Huggett:
This is a Parmenidean argument that one cannot trust one's sense of hearing. Aristotle's
response seems to be that even inaudible sounds can add to an audible sound.[20]

The Moving Rows (or Stadium)[edit]

 The moving rows

From Aristotle:
... concerning the two rows of bodies, each row being composed of an equal number of
bodies of equal size, passing each other on a race-course as they proceed with equal
velocity in opposite directions, the one row originally occupying the space between the goal
and the middle point of the course and the other that between the middle point and the
starting-post. This...involves the conclusion that half a given time is equal to double that
time.[21]
For an expanded account of Zeno's arguments as presented by Aristotle,
see Simplicius' commentary On Aristotle's Physics.

Proposed solutions[edit]
Diogenes the Cynic[edit]
According to Simplicius, Diogenes the Cynic said nothing upon hearing Zeno's arguments,
but stood up and walked, in order to demonstrate the falsity of Zeno's conclusions
(see solvitur ambulando). To fully solve any of the paradoxes, however, one needs to show
what is wrong with the argument, not just the conclusions. Through history, several solutions
have been proposed, among the earliest recorded being those of Aristotle and Archimedes.
Aristotle[edit]
Aristotle (384 BC−322 BC) remarked that as the distance decreases, the time needed to
cover those distances also decreases, so that the time needed also becomes increasingly
small.[22][23]Aristotle also distinguished "things infinite in respect of divisibility" (such as a unit of
space that can be mentally divided into ever smaller units while remaining spatially the
same) from things (or distances) that are infinite in extension ("with respect to their
extremities").[24] Aristotle's objection to the arrow paradox was that "Time is not composed of
indivisible nows any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles."[25]
Thomas Aquinas[edit]
Thomas Aquinas, commenting on Aristotle's objection, wrote "Instants are not parts of time,
for time is not made up of instants any more than a magnitude is made of points, as we have
already proved. Hence it does not follow that a thing is not in motion in a given time, just
because it is not in motion in any instant of that time."[26]
Archimedes[edit]
Before 212 BC, Archimedes had developed a method to derive a finite answer for the sum of
infinitely many terms that get progressively smaller. (See: Geometric series, 1/4 + 1/16 +
1/64 + 1/256 + · · ·, The Quadrature of the Parabola.) Modern calculus achieves the same
result, using more rigorous methods (see convergent series, where the "reciprocals of
powers of 2" series, equivalent to the Dichotomy Paradox, is listed as convergent). These
methods allow the construction of solutions based on the conditions stipulated by Zeno, i.e.
the amount of time taken at each step is geometrically decreasing.[6][27]
Bertrand Russell[edit]
Bertrand Russell offered what is known as the "at-at theory of motion". It agrees that there
can be no motion "during" a durationless instant, and contends that all that is required for
motion is that the arrow be at one point at one time, at another point another time, and at
appropriate points between those two points for intervening times. In this view motion is a
function of position with respect to time.[28][29]
Nick Huggett[edit]
Nick Huggett argues that Zeno is assuming the conclusion when he says that objects that
occupy the same space as they do at rest must be at rest.[16]
Peter Lynds[edit]
Peter Lynds has argued that all of Zeno's motion paradoxes are resolved by the conclusion
that instants in time and instantaneous magnitudes do not physically exist.[30][31][32] Lynds
argues that an object in relative motion cannot have an instantaneous or determined relative
position (for if it did, it could not be in motion), and so cannot have its motion fractionally
dissected as if it does, as is assumed by the paradoxes. For more about the inability to know
both speed and location, see Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
Hermann Weyl[edit]
Another proposed solution is to question one of the assumptions Zeno used in his paradoxes
(particularly the Dichotomy), which is that between any two different points in space (or time),
there is always another point. Without this assumption there are only a finite number of
distances between two points, hence there is no infinite sequence of movements, and the
paradox is resolved. The ideas of Planck length and Planck time in modern physics place a
limit on the measurement of time and space, if not on time and space themselves. According
to Hermann Weyl, the assumption that space is made of finite and discrete units is subject to
a further problem, given by the "tile argument" or "distance function problem".[33][34] According
to this, the length of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle in discretized space is always
equal to the length of one of the two sides, in contradiction to geometry. Jean Paul Van
Bendegem has argued that the Tile Argument can be resolved, and that discretization can
therefore remove the paradox.[6][35]

The paradoxes in modern times[edit]

Infinite processes remained theoretically troublesome in mathematics until the late 19th
century. The epsilon-delta version of Weierstrass and Cauchy developed a rigorous
formulation of the logic and calculus involved. These works resolved the mathematics
involving infinite processes.[36][37]
While mathematics can calculate where and when the moving Achilles will overtake the
Tortoise of Zeno's paradox, philosophers such as Kevin Brown[7] and Moorcroft[8] claim that
mathematics does not address the central point in Zeno's argument, and that solving the
mathematical issues does not solve every issue the paradoxes raise.
Popular literature often misrepresents Zeno's arguments. For example, Zeno is often said to
have argued that the sum of an infinite number of terms must itself be infinite–with the result
that not only the time, but also the distance to be travelled, become infinite.[38] A humorous
take is offered by Tom Stoppard in his play Jumpers (1972), in which the principal
protagonist, the philosophy professor George Moore, suggests that according to Zeno’s
paradox, Saint Sebastian, a 3rd Century Christian saint supposedly martyred by being shot
with arrows, died of fright. However, none of the original ancient sources has Zeno
discussing the sum of any infinite series. Simplicius has Zeno saying "it is impossible to
traverse an infinite number of things in a finite time". This presents Zeno's problem not with
finding the sum, but rather with finishing a task with an infinite number of steps: how can one
ever get from A to B, if an infinite number of (non-instantaneous) events can be identified
that need to precede the arrival at B, and one cannot reach even the beginning of a "last
event"?[7][8][9][39]
Debate continues on the question of whether or not Zeno's paradoxes have been resolved.
In The History of Mathematics: An Introduction (2010) Burton writes, "Although Zeno's
argument confounded his contemporaries, a satisfactory explanation incorporates a now-
familiar idea, the notion of a 'convergent infinite series.'".[40]
Bertrand Russell offered a "solution" to the paradoxes based on the work of Georg
Cantor,[41] but Brown concludes "Given the history of 'final resolutions', from Aristotle
onwards, it's probably foolhardy to think we've reached the end. It may be that Zeno's
arguments on motion, because of their simplicity and universality, will always serve as a kind
of 'Rorschach image' onto which people can project their most fundamental
phenomenological concerns (if they have any)."[7]

A similar ancient Chinese philosophic consideration[edit]

Ancient Chinese philosophers from the Mohist School of Names during the Warring States
period of China (479-221 BCE) independently developed equivalents to some of Zeno's
paradoxes. The scientist and historian Sir Joseph Needham, in his Science and Civilisation
in China, describes an ancient Chinese paradox from the surviving Mohist School of
Names book of logic which states, in the archaic ancient Chinese script, "a one-foot stick,
every day take away half of it, in a myriad ages it will not be exhausted." Several other
paradoxes from this philosophical school (more precisely, movement) are known, but their
modern interpretation is more speculative.

Quantum Zeno effect[edit]

Main article: Quantum Zeno effect
In 1977,[42] physicists E. C. George Sudarshan and B. Misra discovered that the dynamical
evolution (motion) of a quantum system can be hindered (or even inhibited) through
observation of the system.[43] This effect is usually called the "quantum Zeno effect" as it is
strongly reminiscent of Zeno's arrow paradox. This effect was first theorized in 1958. [44]

Zeno behaviour[edit]
In the field of verification and design of timed and hybrid systems, the system behaviour is
called Zeno if it includes an infinite number of discrete steps in a finite amount of
time.[45] Some formal verification techniques exclude these behaviours from analysis, if they
are not equivalent to non-Zeno behaviour.[46][47]
In systems design these behaviours will also often be excluded from system models, since
they cannot be implemented with a digital controller.[48]

See also[edit]
 Incommensurable magnitudes
 Philosophy of space and time
 Renormalization
 Ross–Littlewood paradox
 School of Names
 Supertask
 "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", an allegorical dialogue on the foundations of logic
by Lewis Carroll (1895).
 Zeno machine
Notes[edit]
1. ^ Parmenides 128d
2. ^ Parmenides 128a–b
3. ^ Jump up to:a b Aristotle's Physics "Physics" by Aristotle translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K.
Gaye
4. ^ "Greek text of "Physics" by Aristotle (refer to §4 at the top of the visible screen area)".
Archived from the original on 2008-05-16.
5. ^ ([fragment 65], Diogenes Laërtius. IX 25ff and VIII 57).
6. ^ Jump up to:a b c Boyer, Carl (1959). The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual
Development. Dover Publications. p. 295. ISBN 978-0-486-60509-8. Retrieved 2010-02-26. If
the paradoxes are thus stated in the precise mathematical terminology of continuous
variables (...) the seeming contradictions resolve themselves.
7. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Brown, Kevin. "Zeno and the Paradox of Motion". Reflections on Relativity.
Archived from the original on 2012-12-05. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
8. ^ Jump up to:a b c Moorcroft, Francis. "Zeno's Paradox". Archived from the original on 2010-
04-18.
9. ^ Jump up to:a b Papa-Grimaldi, Alba (1996). "Why Mathematical Solutions of Zeno's
Paradoxes Miss the Point: Zeno's One and Many Relation and Parmenides'
Prohibition" (PDF). The Review of Metaphysics. 50: 299–314.
10. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, Lives, 9.23 and 9.29.
11. ^ Huggett, Nick (2010). "Zeno's Paradoxes: 3.2 Achilles and the Tortoise". Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
12. ^ Lindberg, David (2007). The Beginnings of Western Science(2nd ed.). University of
Chicago Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-226-48205-7.
13. ^ Huggett, Nick (2010). "Zeno's Paradoxes: 3.1 The Dichotomy". Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
14. ^ Aristotle. "Physics". The Internet Classics Archive. Zeno's reasoning, however, is fallacious,
when he says that 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. This is false, for time is not composed of indivisible moments any more than any
other magnitude is composed of indivisibles.
15. ^ Laërtius, Diogenes (c. 230). "Pyrrho". Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. IX.
passage 72. ISBN 1-116-71900-2.
16. ^ Jump up to:a b Huggett, Nick (2010). "Zeno's Paradoxes: 3.3 The Arrow". Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
17. ^ Aristotle Physics IV:1, 209a25
18. ^ The Michael Proudfoot, A.R. Lace. Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy. Routledge 2009, p.
445
19. ^ Aristotle Physics VII:5, 250a20
20. ^ Huggett, Nick, "Zeno's Paradoxes", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/#GraMil
21. ^ Aristotle Physics VI:9, 239b33
22. ^ Aristotle. Physics 6.9
23. ^ Aristotle's observation that the fractional times also get shorter does not guarantee, in every
case, that the task can be completed. One case in which it does not hold is that in which the
fractional times decrease in a harmonic series, while the distances decrease geometrically,
such as: 1/2 s for 1/2 m gain, 1/3 s for next 1/4 m gain, 1/4 s for next 1/8 m gain, 1/5 s for
next 1/16 m gain, 1/6 s for next 1/32 m gain, etc. In this case, the distances form a
convergent series, but the times form a divergent series, the sum of which has no limit.
Archimedes developed a more explicitly mathematical approach than Aristotle.
24. ^ Aristotle. Physics 6.9; 6.2, 233a21-31
25. ^ Aristotle. Physics. VI. Part 9 verse: 239b5. ISBN 0-585-09205-2.
26. ^ Aquinas. Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, Book 6.861
27. ^ George B. Thomas, Calculus and Analytic Geometry, Addison Wesley, 1951
28. ^ Huggett, Nick (1999). Space From Zeno to Einstein. ISBN 0-262-08271-3.
29. ^ Salmon, Wesley C. (1998). Causality and Explanation. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-19-510864-4.
30. ^ "Zeno's Paradoxes: A Timely Solution".
31. ^ Lynds, Peter. Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs.
Discontinuity. Foundations of Physics Letter s (Vol. 16, Issue 4, 2003).
doi:10.1023/A:1025361725408
32. ^ Time’s Up Einstein, Josh McHugh, Wired Magazine, June 2005
33. ^ Van Bendegem, Jean Paul (17 March 2010). "Finitism in Geometry". Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Retrieved 2012-01-03.
34. ^ Cohen, Marc (11 December 2000). "ATOMISM". History of Ancient Philosophy, University
of Washington. Archived from the original on July 12, 2010. Retrieved 2012-01-03.
35. ^ van Bendegem, Jean Paul (1987). "Discussion:Zeno's Paradoxes and the Tile
Argument". Philosophy of Science. Belgium. 54 (2): 295–
302. doi:10.1086/289379. JSTOR 187807.
36. ^ Lee, Harold (1965). "Are Zeno's Paradoxes Based on a Mistake?". Mind. Oxford University
Press. 74 (296): 563–570. doi:10.1093/mind/LXXIV.296.563. JSTOR 2251675.
37. ^ B Russell (1956) Mathematics and the metaphysicians in "The World of Mathematics"
(ed. J R Newman), pp 1576-1590.
38. ^ Benson, Donald C. (1999). The Moment of Proof : Mathematical Epiphanies. New York:
Oxford University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0195117219.
39. ^ Huggett, Nick (2010). "Zeno's Paradoxes: 5. Zeno's Influence on Philosophy". Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2011-03-07.
40. ^ Burton, David, A History of Mathematics: An Introduction, McGraw Hill, 2010, ISBN 978-0-
07-338315-6
41. ^ Russell, Bertrand (2002) [First published in 1914 by The Open Court Publishing Company].
"Lecture 6. The Problem of Infinity Considered Historically". Our Knowledge of the External
World: As a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy. Routledge. p. 169. ISBN 0-415-09605-
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theory" (PDF). Journal of Mathematical Physics. 18 (4): 756–
763. Bibcode:1977JMP....18..756M. doi:10.1063/1.523304.
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effect" (PDF). PRA. 41 (5): 2295–
2300. Bibcode:1990PhRvA..41.2295I. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.41.2295. Archived from the
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