PARADOXES!

If you don't know, a paradox is something that logically can be “proven”, but makes no sense in the real world.
For example, Zeno's paradox tells us that you physically cannot get to your destination.

Zeno wrote:

1) I will prove that you cannot get to your destination.
Let's say that you are at point A. You wish to get to point B.
To get to point B, you first have to get halfway to that point.
Now in order to get to point B from your current location, you must first move half of the remaining distance.
And again, move halfway of the remaining distance.
On and on, the fraction keeps getting smaller and smaller, the distance left gets shorter and shorter.
But that distance never reaches 0, so you have not reached point B.

2) I will now prove that you cannot move at all.
Again, you are at point A and wish to get to point B.
You must first move halfway to point B, as stated in the first part.
But, in order to get to that halfway point, you must first go halfway to the midpoint.
And again, halfway to the halfway to the midpoint of points A and B.
The fraction keeps getting smaller, and it will get so small that you physically cannot move.

(Yes, this is the one currently in my signature.)
Now those are paradoxes, I just proved mathematically that you can't move, but you obviously can in the real world.

Another common one is:

Let's say you have a time machine.
1) You decide to go back to the time your parents met for the first time.
You accidentally prevented them from meeting.
If they don't meet, then you would not be born.
If you were not born, you couldn't go back in time to prevent your parents from meeting.
Your parents would meet, and you would be born.
You would go back and prevent your parents from meeting
Etc.
What would actually happen?

Please do not quote this entire OP. Thanks!
Feel free to discuss any of the example paradoxes, and please comment your favorite paradox!
Also, feel free to contact me on my profile page about any of these.
Thanks!
-FH1

What about if you make a cake cut it in half and put the half on top and do that again over and over you will eventually you will have an infinitely tall cake with a finite mass

jakel181 wrote:

What about if you make a cake cut it in half and put the half on top and do that again over and over you will eventually you will have an infinitely tall cake with a finite mass

Wow, that's a good one. Mind if I put it into the OP later?

Sure

This sentence is false.

Quite possibly the simplest paradox, but still ridiculously complex if you look into it.

WolfCat67 wrote:

This sentence is false.

Quite possibly the simplest paradox, but still ridiculously complex if you look into it.

I forgot about that one… Nice! I'll add it, once I can edit the OP. There may be a restriction on new scratchers editing posts.

Forum_Helper1 wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

This sentence is false.

Quite possibly the simplest paradox, but still ridiculously complex if you look into it.

I forgot about that one… Nice! I'll add it, once I can edit the OP. There may be a restriction on new scratchers editing posts.

That's sad. Though I do have to ask… Why a new scratcher and 100+ posts!

Another simple one:
Today is opposite day.

DominoDragon1 wrote:

Forum_Helper1 wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

This sentence is false.

Quite possibly the simplest paradox, but still ridiculously complex if you look into it.

I forgot about that one… Nice! I'll add it, once I can edit the OP. There may be a restriction on new scratchers editing posts.

That's sad. Though I do have to ask… Why a new scratcher and 100+ posts!

Another simple one:
Today is opposite day.

Ohhhh nice! I totally forgot about all these simple ones…

BUMP!

WolfCat67 wrote:

This sentence is false.

Quite possibly the simplest paradox, but still ridiculously complex if you look into it.

One similar sentence (that actually shows up in mathematics) is “This sentence cannot be proven true.”

Does a set of all sets contain itself?
Mission: Refuse this mission.

Great! I'll add these when I become a scratcher!
Anyone got any complex ones?

Divide by zero

Galleigo wrote:

Divide by zero

That's not exactly a paradox (I don't think…), but sure!

Zeno's paradox can be explained because space is quantized (you can't split a planck length in half)… it's a bit like a board game where you move along a grid, you can't move half a grid square

You go back in time and revert an event that caused you to travel back in time. Now that event didn't happen and there would have to be someone who did the event.

Thanks Sonic '06.

A teacher announces to her class that there will be a surprise test sometime during the following week. The students begin to speculate about when it might occur, until one of them announces that there is no reason to worry, because a surprise test is impossible. The test cannot be given on Friday, she says, because by the end of the day on Thursday we would know that the test must be given the next day. Nor can the test be given on Thursday, she continues, because, given that we know that the test cannot be given on Friday, by the end of the day on Wednesday we would know that the test must be given the next day. And likewise for Wednesday, Tuesday, and Monday.

I'm going to keep tabs on this topic. I unfortunately don't have any paradoxes to share yet. But I love reading them. XD

A man walks into a toy store. He asks the sales assistant if he can buy two red stress balls. The sales assistant states that he can. She asks the man to wait as she is seen entering a storage room. A few minutes later she is seen with a single blue stress ball in her hand. The man states that he is unsatisfied, and the sales assistant says that if the man can state all the things she did incorrectly while fulfilling the man's request, he will get both balls for free. The man gives up, and walks out of the toy store empty-handed, along with a headache.

Why? The answer is simple. The woman said:

Mistake No. 1: The colour of the stress ball is incorrect.
Mistake No. 2: The amount of purchased (red) stress balls is incorrect (none).
Mistake No. 3: The man asked if he could purchase the two balls, and yet he didn't (the sales assistant said he can).
Mistake No. 4: The sales assistant didn't demand the customer money (made an unofficial free offer).

Allow me to explain:

Mistake number one isn't a mistake as the amount of stress balls the man asked for was more than one, so the colour doesn't matter in this case. Let me rewrite mistake number one, then.

Mistake No. 1: The item presented is incorrect.

Since mistake No. 2 is basically the same as mistake number one, that one is eliminated.

We don't need to change or remove mistake no. 3.

Mistake No. 4 is the same as mistake no. 3, since the sales assistant wouldn't demand the customer money if the man wouldn't agree to buy them.

The actual mistakes are as follows:


Mistake No. 1: The item presented is incorrect.
Mistake No. 2: The woman's first mistake was incorrectly stated.
Mistake No. 3: The man asked if he could purchase the two balls, and yet he didn't (the sales assistant said he can).
Mistake No. 4: Mistake No. 4 is the same as mistake No. 3, so that makes three actual mistakes (the woman stated).
Mistake No. 5: The woman stated four mistakes.
Mistake No. 6: Mistake No. 4 is stated incorrectly ("makes three actual mistakes")
Mistake No. 7: Mistake No. 5 is stated incorrectly.

Can you name all the mistakes?

gigamushroom wrote:

-Snip-

So a paradox infused in a riddle…

You're melting my brain. ._.