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The paradox concerns a race between the fleet-footed Achilles and a slow-moving tortoise. The two start moving at the same moment, but if the tortoise is initially given a head start and continues to move ahead, Achilles can run at any speed and will never catch up with it.
Zeno of Elea (c. 450 BCE) is credited with creating several famous paradoxes, and perhaps the best known is the paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles. (Achilles was the great Greek hero of Homer’s The Iliad .)
In the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with a tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 meters, for example. Suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed, one faster than the other.
Learn about Zeno's puzzle that challenges the common sense of motion and space. Find out how calculus, physics, and computer science deal with the paradox and its implications.
Apr 30, 2002 · Imagine Achilles chasing a tortoise, and suppose that Achilles is running at 1 m/s, that the tortoise is crawling at 0.1 m/s and that the tortoise starts out 0.9m ahead of Achilles.
Mar 5, 2014 · Zeno's paradox challenges the concept of motion and infinity by asking whether Achilles can ever catch a tortoise in a race. Learn the logic, the math, and the history behind this ancient puzzle and its solutions.
Learn about Zeno's paradoxes, ancient Greek puzzles that question if we can move or change. The Achilles and the Tortoise paradox is one of them, showing that movement is impossible because of infinite steps.
