>mfw a libartsfag tries to explain zeno's paradox to me and doesn't understand why it's not valid
Will society ever become math literate?
>>8158831
Had a guy in my senior year mathematics seminar tell me that if Zeno's paradox were resolved, it wouldn't be called a paradox.
Needless to say, he was an evangelical Christian.
>>8158831
it's valid it's just not a problem
paradox to most people just means "counter-intuitive"
>>8158838
No, paradox is SUPPOSED to mean roughly "counter-intuitive", but to "most people" seems to mean "insurmountable conflict that invalidates everything we know".
shouldn't the "nature of time" discussion be on /his/ ?
just sayin. that's one of those abstract things which good numbers people particularly, rigidly avoid. to wit, is or is not infinity an obviously wrong answer in theoretical physics?
>>8158840
Pretty sure it means axioms P and Q leads to a contradiction
>>8158843
infinity as a measurable quantity is a bad sign, but as a concept or tool for understanding things there's no problem with it. There's an infinite number of more complicated perturbations to Feynman diagrams, but their contribution becomes infinitesimal, so the actual quantity is finite.
Unless it isn't, of course.
>>8158844
You should check out a dictionary sometime before making yourself look stupid -- they're all over the internet.
Merriam-Webster:
>something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible
>someone who does two things that seem to be opposite to each other or who has qualities that are opposite
>a statement that seems to say two opposite things but that may be true
>>8158859
> P and not P leads to true
Can you show me how this works with physical paradoxes like the ladder paradox or Ehrenfest paradox?
>>8158831>>8158840
OP is such a fagget that he thinks paradoxes exists outside formal languages for deductions and that formal languages are meant to describe the world.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
>>8158859
Wait it (P) only "seems impossible" because of a faulty assumption (Q), leads to a contradiction.
"actually true" doesn't mean much formally, at least to me.
faggots pls learn to do basic math
[math]\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} \frac{\ 1}{\ 2^{n}} = 1[/math]
>>8158907
>zeno's paradox isn't a paradox
>you just have to sum infinite steps
>*fails to mention infinite isn't physically real*
zeno's paradox demonstrates that the universe is illogical and math is a conceptual modeling tool not an actual reality.
>>8158911
Or you could just say that motion requires analysis to describe it, because clearly motion is possible.
Also that sum doesn't require infinite steps.
does zenos paradox imply that the universe operates in "frames", with a smallest possible time length?
>>8158923
No, it implies the Greeks couldn't into limits
>>8158917
you wot m8
It's a geometric series. It is a convergent series.
>>8158936
>It's a geometric series. It is a convergent series.
And? That doesn't imply it requires infinite steps.
>>8158939
You trolling? You must be trolling. Do you mean 'steps' as in arithmetic operations, or 'steps' as in physical steps. In either case, no shit you don't need infinite steps. But in the series you are summing with infinity as an upper index...
>>8159027
>But in the series you are summing with infinity as an upper index...
No you're not. It's an abuse of notation.
[eqn] \sum^\infty_{i=n_0} a_i := \lim_{N\to\infty} \sum^N_{i=n_0}a_i [/eqn]
You're finding the limit of a sequence, which can be shown using a typical epsilon-N argument.
>>8158923
no. Zeno's paradox was eleatic philosophy designed to demonstrate the absurd conclusions that would follow if one were to assume that reality operates according to pluralistic ontology, namely, the idea that reality isn't a single unchanging whole. Motion doesn't exist because reality is only Being. He was right, by the way.
