You are here

A Short Take on Zeno's Paradox

Slate's "chief explainer" Brian Palmer offers aid to anyone who has ever been (or will ever be) pressed to do more than just dismissively declare that Zeno was wrong when he argued that Achilles would not be able to catch a tortoise given a head start in a footrace.

Palmer distills the arguments relayed to him by professors of philosophy and mathematics into three parts:

  1. Yes, it's a trick. But what kind of trick?
  2. There's more than one kind of infinity.
  3. It's more than a theory.

Read the story.

Start Date: 
Thursday, March 20, 2014