Zeno's paradox

noun

Mathematics.

any of various versions of a paradox regarding the relation of the discrete to the continuous and requiring the concept of limit for its satisfactory explanation.

Zeno's paradox

A paradox is an apparent falsehood that is true, or an apparent truth that is false. Zeno, an ancient Greek, argued that a number of apparent truths such as motion and plurality are really false. A well-known, simplified version of one of his paradoxes is that an arrow can never reach its target, because the distance it must travel can be divided into an infinite number of subdistances, and therefore the arrow must take an infinite amount of time to arrive at its destination.

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Word History and Origins

Origin of Zeno's paradox¹

After Zeno of Elea

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

It is the infinite that lies at the heart of Zeno’s paradox: Zeno had taken continuous motion and divided it into an infinite number of tiny steps.

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Yet Zeno’s paradox was so powerful that the Greeks tried over and over to explain away his infinities.

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Every minute, every second, the hands refute Zeno’s paradox: They move continuously, never pausing artificially on one number, passing through an infinite series of fractions of time — a visual demonstration of the fact that time is always in motion.

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It sounds like biography writing as Zeno’s paradox — getting infinitesimally closer to the end without ever reaching it.

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Tracing underground shorts can take hours, City Light crew chief Fiel Diaz explains: You dig up the middle of a shorted line, determine which side the short is on, dig at its midpoint … and so on and so on, until you find the short — an electrical Zeno’s paradox.

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Zeno of Elea zeolite

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