World's best suggested paradox

[Geekosaurus]

You can't divide by zero. Yes you fucking can. I have two apples, I don't divide by anything so I still have two apples. The mathematicians just don't want to admit defeat.

Well done for proving yourself wrong. You tried to prove you can divide something by not dividing something. It's almost a paradox in itself.

If you think about it, we're both right.

 

[kirbyoung]

I like part of the Assassins moto in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and probably the others as well, "Nothing is true."

 

[Megawizard]

What happens when the unstoppable force hits the immovable object?

 

[Maze1125]

NOTE: 0.9 recurring does not equal 1! There are different sizes of infinity!

Yes it does, please see my proof here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.252127-Poll-0-999-1?page=18#9367421].
And if that one is too complicated, there are many simpler ones in that thread.

I say it again what's

1. The
2. Smallest
3. Number
4. Not
5. Nameable
6. In
7. Under
8. Ten
9. Words?

one million one hundred and one thousand one hundred and one.

Smallest one I can come up with.

Assuming that is the smallest, you can now name it by calling it "The smallest number not nameable in under ten words."
Which is a name for it in less than ten words.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

How long will it take you to cross a crosswalk if with each step, you cut the distance you walked with the prior step by half?

You'll never make it

Yes and No. (heh, paradox!) The answer is: the time it takes for someone run the crosswalk (or stop light, depending on external conditions) and run your ass over. heh. Chaos theory (i think it was chaos theory. it might have been something else...) states that as time approaches infinity, all possible outcomes, no matter how unlikely, can and will occur (fun stuff, theoretical physics).

[/quote] doesn't this mean the event of nothing changing anything ever has to happen as well? which means your statement kills itself and i will be handing it to the paradoxians to protect our planet!

 

[SultanP]

what happens when an unstoppable force hits an unmovable object?

The Immovable object would break (But still remain unmoved) and the the unstobbable object would continue on it's path.

So how is the immovable object going to break without moving? I assume that by breaking, you mean that parts of it move away from other parts of it, which can't be done without some of it moving.

 

[Of-the-Lion]

How long will it take you to cross a crosswalk if with each step, you cut the distance you walked with the prior step by half?

((1*.5)^x)a = distance taken in the step
a = distance taken in first step
x = number of steps taken

learn2exponentialdecayfunction

you will never get there.

 

[reallycoolusername]

The sentiment of "i know nothing"

if i say this then i am aware that i know nothing and actually know someting (if only that one sentance)

therefore knowing this renders the initial statement invalid. therefore causing me to arive back at my orriginal state

 

[eggy32]

You can't divide by zero. Yes you fucking can. I have two apples, I don't divide by anything so I still have two apples. The mathematicians just don't want to admit defeat.

Well done for proving yourself wrong. You tried to prove you can divide something by not dividing something. It's almost a paradox in itself.

If you think about it, we're both right.

No, I'm still the only one here who's right.

 

[2xDouble]

How long will it take you to cross a crosswalk if with each step, you cut the distance you walked with the prior step by half?

You'll never make it

Yes and No. (heh, paradox!) The answer is: the time it takes for someone run the crosswalk (or stop light, depending on external conditions) and run your ass over. heh. Chaos theory (i think it was chaos theory. it might have been something else...) states that as time approaches infinity, all possible outcomes, no matter how unlikely, can and will occur (fun stuff, theoretical physics).

doesn't this mean the event of nothing changing anything ever has to happen as well? which means your statement kills itself and i will be handing it to the paradoxians to protect our planet!

Yep. Nothing and everything change simultaneously while remaining exactly the same. (That's why it's called Chaos Theory.)
The fact that anything exists or doesn't exist is itself a paradox. Cool, huh?
(Actually that isn't why it's called Chaos Theory, but it adds a nice dramatic effect, no?)

It goes to show just how effin' long infinite time is, and how effin' big is infinite space.

/thread

 

[Zero-Vash]

A favorite paradox from the kids book "Math Curse":

You're sitting at the dinner table with your parents. Your mother says, "Whatever your father says is always true." Your father says, "Whatever your mother says is always false."

Have fun with that one

Logically there isn't a problem, simply your mom's statement is false. But that doesn't mean that your dad is always true. That statement "Whatever your mother says is always false", can be true, but if your dad said "Whenever your mom talks you lose a finger" that doesn't mean it's true.

Simply just because he (your father) says one true statement doesn't mean all his statements are true

 

[Cavouku]

The old one about an omnipotent being being able to do/create something that extends their own limitations seems like an easy one to me, actually.

This being, if they have true omnipotence, holds domain over physics, including the law that would negate that possibility. In this sense, the being could, say, create something too heavy for it to lift, but it would simultaneously be able to lift the object. I'm pretty sure omnipotence implies that one is not restrained in their power, even over universal laws.

Could we comprehend this act taking place? I don't know, I think I would just... who here has a picture of buddy's head blowing up?

 

[TAGM]

What happens if Pinochkio says: my nose will grow now!

Solution: Either 1) He is telling the truth, and his nose will grow imidiatly independent of his "Thou shall not lie or thy nose shall grow" rule, or 2) He lies, and his nose grows just after he says his sentence, thereby not growing "now."

In fact, a lot of these can be answered by critical anaylisis of the things involved, to find out which part has been deffined wrongly. For the "cat-toast-antigravity" Paradox, does the cat ALWAYS land feet up? Does the toast ALWAYS land butter side down? The answer to both is "no," so you cannot (unfortunatly) make an anti-gravity cat. (Either that, or it would land on it's side.)

TL,DR - most of the time, Paradoxs come from faulty logic.

STL,SDR - YOUR FAULT.

 

[Piflik]

If purple is the combination of Red and Blue... what is Red or Blue the combination of?

Purple is not a combination of red and blue.
Purple is a wavelength of light.
Which answers your question.
Red and blue are wavelengths of light.

Sorry, but purple is not a wavelength of light. In fact it is the only color that doesn't exist as a wavelength. Visible light goes from red (long) to blue (short); purple would be shorter than blue and at the same time longer than red...

Purple is and will always be a combination of red and blue light.

 

[Cavouku]

Oh, and a few people have given good answers for the unstoppable force/immovable object one, but there are a number of answers, I just want to see if I've covered them all.

1. The force breaks the object, which is not defined as unbreakable.
2. If the object is defined as unbreakable, the force is redirected. The force is not defined as constant.
3. If the object is defined as unbreakable, and the force as persistent, the force passes through the object in an undamaging way (wormhole? Force = light, immovable object = glass?).
4. ...Well... I can see no other possible outcome(s).

 

[Space Lion]

You can't divide by zero because zero is a lack of quantity. Everything is limited to the amount of times that you can divide it and how big or small you can possibly make the values. That is if you want a quantity for an answer. IMO any maths equation that comes up with the answer zero or infinity when a quantity was expected is an error in math or understanding.

 

[TriGGeR_HaPPy]

snip

But I haven't divided by anything, so they still exist as a pair of apples! Mind. Blown. Like I said, they just don't want to admit defeat. This is why I do literature and not maths.

For someone doing literature, you appear to be having a few problems with your semantics.

"... haven't divided by anything" is your problem.
Lets look at it through the way of multiplication, just for a second (I'm gonna skip using "apples" in my examples since other people have already covered it well, and just use the numbers):
Multiplying 2 by 0 (2 x 0) = 0, yes? That's easy to understand. But it you "don't multiply by anything", you're saying you're not actually doing anything to the apples. Semantics, yes, but that's what you're saying when you say you "haven't divided by anything".

Dividing by 0, however, is a completely different kettle of fish, and I'm not great at explaining, so I'll just use simple math here.
2 / 2 = 1
2 / 1 = 2
2 / 0.5 = 4
2 / 0.25 = 8
2 / 0.125 = 16
...
2 / 0.00390625 = 512
2 / 0.001953125 = 1024
etc.
etc.As what you're dividing by gets smaller, your result is bigger. So, as what you're dividing by approaches 0, your result approaches infinity.

Back to the apples... Imagine that the 2 on the left of those equations is how many apples you have, the number you're dividing by is how many apples you can eat a day. The result is how many days it'll take to eat those apples. If you can only eat a tiny amount a day, it'll take you a hell of a long time to eat them.
Finally, if you can't eat any apples a day at all, it'll take you forever to eat them.

-

EDIT:

You can't divide by zero because zero is a lack of quantity. Everything is limited to the amount of times that you can divide it and how big or small you can possibly make the values. That is if you want a quantity for an answer. IMO any maths equation that comes up with the answer zero or infinity when a quantity was expected is an error in math or understanding.

This is a good quote, too. This is also why on graphics calculators, you can sometimes end up with infinity as an answer to a select few equations, but if you actually divide something by 0, it'll give you "undefined" as its answer.

 

[samuraiash1991]

One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead men got up to fight, back to back they faced eachover, drew the swords and shot eachover.

best paradox story i know

 

[samuraiash1991]

One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead men got up to fight, back to back they faced eachover, drew the swords and shot eachover.

best paradox story i know

 

[diebane]

If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it fall except one man, but the tree falls on the man and kills him, does the man dying make a sound?

This is nice.

Or if we're talking fantasy stuff:

You have 2 metal walls. You put one portal on each and then push one metal wall into the portal on the other metal wall. What happens?

mfG diebane