The Zeno Tortoise: Can man never catch up with the tortoise? A dialectic of the past, cracked by modern science!

In our last article, we talked about a cat, Schrödinger's cat, but this cat has confused many people. Other animals should be difficult for such people to get along with, such as the tortoise we are talking about today. This tortoise is a figment of Zeno's imagination and has the advantage of being ahead of Achilles, who always runs well.

As usual, let me start by introducing Zeno. Zeno, whose full name is Zeno of Eleusis. Ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher, student and friend of the famous philosopher of the Eleasian school, Parmenides. Best known for Zeno's paradoxes, which are four paradoxes about the impossibility of motion. The purpose of the paradoxes was to support his teacher, Parmenides. He believed that everything in the world that moves and changes is unreal. The only real thing is what Bamenides called "the only incomprehensible being". Being is one and not many, stillness and not a movement.

The Zeno turtle is the most famous of the four paradoxes about the impossibility of movement. This paradox is that Achilles (aka Achilles), the fastest hero in Greek mythology, was allowed to race a tortoise. Suppose Achilles gives the tortoise a lead of one kilometre and Achilles is ten times faster than the tortoise. They both start running at the same time. By the time Achilles has run the first kilometre, the tortoise has climbed a hundred metres. By the time Achilles had run 100 metres, the tortoise had already climbed 10 metres. At this rate, Achilles would be closing in on the tortoise indefinitely, but never catching up to it, and was almost there. Although it seems a short distance, it can never be broken under this assumption. It is close enough to be said to be close, but there is always a little distance between them.

Why is it a paradox? Because of this hypothesis, one could say that Achilles and the tortoise are always separated by a little distance. But in reality, there is no such hypothesis as "Achilles is ten times faster than the tortoise". Achilles could easily overtake the tortoise even if he kept his speed even.

The key points in this paradox are time and distance. Assuming eternity, is it eternity? Can distance be broken in infinite time? In the time of Zeno, over 400 B.C., people at that time also thought it was impossible. But no one could answer, so the hypothesis became a paradox. But based on the current scientific basis, we can already prove that this paradox is wrong and not a real paradox.

In the course of history, scientists have come up with the concept of the quantum. The quantum is the key to solving this paradox. As we said earlier, the key point is time and distance. As long as time and distance are not infinitely divisible, we can end the race.

Quantum theory holds that time and length cannot be split infinitely and that Planck time and Planck length are the smallest metrics. The Planck time is 10-43 seconds and the Planck length is 1.6 x 10^-35 metres. Although these two measures are really small, they at least give a limit. Surely this is a measure that makes sense, otherwise, the limit should not be limited.

So this race will either end in the shortest possible time or in the shortest possible time. I won't count this one, only that the paradox is over.

I think the most important significance of Zeno's Turtle Paradox is the dialectic. Zeno himself is considered to be the founder of dialectics. Dialectics is the study of abstraction through logical processes, that is, the process of words, reasoning, descriptions, concepts and explanations. As early as B.C., Greek philosophers began to speculate and argue about various issues.

A lot of people don't understand what these things have to think about. It's like having nothing better to do with your food. Is there no point in all this stuff? Maybe, but only for those who enjoy life in the present but look down on it. Wasn't the present life built step by step by people in the past? If there are problems, someone will solve them; if there are no problems, someone will find them. For human beings, life is a process of constantly encountering problems and constantly solving them. When you have the ability, you can naturally find your problems to imagine and breakthrough. Although many problems can only be raised, they cannot be solved. But it is important to know that as many problems as there are, our lives can only go so well if those in the past have solved them for us.

Thinking is very important for human beings and everything human is based on their thoughts. It is still important to develop a good mindset. After all, it concerns every step of our lives.

I think it is the summary of the main points :

1. Zeno, whose full name was Zeno of Ilia. He was an ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher, a student and friend of the famous philosopher Parmenides of the school of Elias. Best known for Zeno's paradoxes, which are four paradoxes about the impossibility of motion. The purpose of the paradoxes was to support his teacher, Parmenides. He believed that everything in the world that moves and changes is unreal. The only real thing is what Bamenides called "the only incomprehensible being". Being is one and not many, stillness and not motion.

2. The Zeno tortoise means that Achilles (also known as Achilles), the fastest hero in Greek mythology, was racing against a tortoise. Suppose Achilles gives the tortoise a lead of one kilometre and Achilles is ten times faster than the tortoise. They both start running at the same time. By the time Achilles has run the first kilometre, the tortoise has climbed a hundred metres. By the time Achilles runs 100 metres, the tortoise has already climbed 10 metres. At this rate, Achilles will approach the tortoise indefinitely, but never catch up to it, and is almost there.

3. In this paradox, the key point is time and distance. Quantum theory suggests that time and length cannot be split infinitely and that Planck time and Planck length are the smallest metrics. So the race is either over in the shortest possible time, or it is over in the shortest possible time.

4. Dialectics is the study of logical processes through abstraction, that is, the process of words, reasoning, descriptions, concepts and explanations.

5. Ideas are important to human beings and everything human is based on their own thoughts. It is still important to develop a good mind. After all, it concerns every step of our lives.