Um... WRONG Zeno

Zeno of Elea thought himself quite clever when he came up with his paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise which is funny because when I heard it all I could think was WRONG! If you haven't heard the paradox it can be found at this link: LINK.

Now that you know what I'm talking about here's what I have to say:

In his paradox of the runners Zeno completely ignores the laws of physics. If I’m following him correctly, his paradox is based on the idea that the by the time the fast runner reaches the spot where the slow runner is, the slow runner would have already moved to the next spot. This is true, but Zeno is not accounting for the difference in time v. distance for the fast runner and the slow runner. Let’s say that the fast runner (FR) moves at 2 inches per minute, and the slow runner (SR) moves at 1 inch per minute (just pretend the runners are ants or something). Now, SR starts two inches in front of FR and runs like crazy. In one minute, FR will travel 2 inches and is where SR was, but, because SR was also moving, in that one second he will have traveled 1 inch away from his original position. Now, FR is at SR’s old position, and SR is one inch away. When they start running again it takes FR 30 sec to get to SR’s position because SR is only 1 inch away. In that same 30 seconds, SR will travel half an inch from his old position. Now FR is at SR’s second position, and SR is only half an inch away. See the trend? It will take FR less and less time to reach SR’s position, so SR will have less and less time to move away. Eventually, the distance between FR and SR will disappear. Or another way to look at it is, the time it takes FR to reach SR’s position will diminish to 0. Either way, the slow runner is not winning this race!!


I know what you’re thinking; I totally missed the point of the paradox. But if you ask me, next time Zeno makes a paradox he should take physics into consideration. Creating a paradox by ignoring key facts of life isn’t deep, it’s asinine.