World's best suggested paradox

[Exocet]

The crocodile sophisme is the best paradox I've ever read,and I got a whole book on mathematical,logical and optical illusions.
It goes something like this:

The Crocodile Dilemma is an unsolvable problem in logic. The premise states that a crocodile who has stolen a child promises the father that his son will be returned if and only if he can correctly predict whether or not the crocodile will return the child.

The transaction is logically smooth (but unpredictable) if the father guesses that the child will be returned, but a dilemma arises for the crocodile if he guesses that the child will not be returned. In the case that the crocodile decides to keep the child, he violates his terms: the father's prediction has been validated, and the child should be returned. However, in the case that the crocodile decides to give back the child, he still violates his terms, even if this decision is based on the previous result: the father's prediction has been falsified, and the child should not be returned. The question of what the crocodile should do is therefore paradoxical, and there is no justifiable solution.

I copied it from wiki,but I prefer the more storified version,where the father is really an Egyptian mother.

 

[multiple_man]

The last man on earth sat in a room.

then there came a knock on the door.



----
shortest scary story ever.

it was the last woman on earth (or even just ANY woman)

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

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.

No, you cannot divide by zero. Not directly.

The problem with the inner post here is that the there is some confusion between "division" and subtraction. You can easily subtract zero elements of a set. This is indeed such a trivial thing to do that it forms a basic mathematical identity: a - 0 = a (a being a real number). What the post suggest is subtraction.

Division on the other hand is fundamentally different. If you imagine a pie, you can imagine the pie being divided into say four equal segments. Or 8 or whatever number you want. It turns out, the number of segments you get out of this pie is related to how much of the pie is in each segment. If you have 1 pie and you divide it into 10 segments, you have divided the pie by 10.

But when we divide by zero, we suddenly have a problem. We are asked to take that pie and slice segments that take up precisely no pie at all. We can never finish the process of dividing the pie by virtue of the fact that we need to make infinity cuts to get the job done.

Of course, division by zero is a problem largely because of the number set we generally use. Complex mathematics offer ways to explore division by zero as a concept. But in the real number space (i.e. that useful space we use every day) you cannot do it. This is, incidentally, one of the two fundamental problems Calculus seeks to resolve. While we cannot divide by zero using real numbers, we at least have the means to gather sufficient information to understand what happens as we come very close to dividing by zero.

To the larger point, most paradoxes I have seen are the result of self reference. Most supposed mathematical paradoxes are not, in fact, paradoxes but rather are the result of mathematical fallacy.

 

[Xyliss]

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?

well if we knew how big the initial step was, how long the cross-walk is and how long each step takes, you can work that out

Nope you'd theoretically never make it.

 

[Xyliss]

A fun thing I picked up in 4-U maths class last year; Supernatural numbers.

Spoiler

Imagine a list of decimal numbers, for example:

1.23...
2.34...
3.45...

Now, imagine if you took the first digit of the first number, added one, the second digit of the second number, added one, and constructed a new number;

1.23...
2.34...
3.45...
-----------
2.46...

Now imagine that this list is infinite, encompassing all numbers. The number formed by the (number digit +1) method will already exist inside the series , and thus the final number will have at least one digit different.. to itself.

There is no final number so this doesn't work

 

[MadCapMunchkin]

what happens if you glue some toast butter side up to the back of a cat, and then drop the cat?

Oh, my God, yes! LMAO!

OT: Well, someone already did Curry's Paradox, and that was my plan. Ah, well...

 

[gravitate]

all my ideas are gone, damn...

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

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.

I shall explain.

Firstly, in the theoretical sense:

I'm pretty sure that you're familiar with the idea that 1/0.1=10, and if not, go check. So, dividing anything by a smaller number that one gives a larger number.

1/0.1=10
1/0.01=100
1/0.001=1000

And so on. So, the smaller the number you're dividing by, the larger the outcome. 0, being infinitely small, will yield and infinitely large outcome. Ta-Dah!

In a practical sense:

You mentioned cakes. Now consider the following: Until you acknowledge a cake's existence as it is, with its dimensions as they are, it could be infinite in size. By looking at it and stating 'That is a cake, I have not cut it, and it is not infinitely big', you are, in effect, dividing it by 1.

That's what I've got, pulled together by research I did a while back, spurred by curiosity. Let me know what you think.

 

[Mad Fast]

The paradox of motion named 'Achilles And The Tortoise"

In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise

Forgive me if I am missing the point, but I just put my pet tortoise about 100m ahead of me then my brother attracted him with a bit of lettuce he starts walking I ran and caught up and over took him in no time at all.

 

[Codenet]

Time Travel.

 

[i_love_beige]

You got me

I suppose "This post does not exist" would have been more 'true' to the Liar Paradox

 

[KEM10]

That one I enjoy, and the ham sandwich.
Nothing it better than eternal happiness.
A ham sandwich is better than nothing.
Therefore, by the transitive property, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness.
QED

Yes there is.
Bacon.

Just realized what happened.
Bacon, in and of itself, is not eternal. It can be a cause of happiness, but its limited time frame in eternity means that it is only a small portion (if one at all).

Well, same with a ham sandwich, but.... bacon is the better version.... so... what is bacon?

The thing is, I just showed how a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness. Sure it involved a little math logic and turns of phrase, but it works.

And bacon is sliced pork belly that is fried. Because of the naturally high amount of fat in pork belly and the automatic reaction to fat that humans have, it is believed to be one of the more enjoyable meats out there. The curing process also doesn't help any.

 

[Jonluw]

Wow, there are a lot of weird things passing for paradoxes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox] in this thread... Ó_ò

OT: I'll just go with The barber's paradox, mentioned earlier in this thread.

Edit: I also like this one.
"The following statement is true
The preceding statement was false."

 

[Jonluw]

what happens when an unstoppable force hits an unmovable object?

I imagine the objects will break?

 

[royohz]

If you try to fail and you succeed, what have you done?

You will have failed to complete the initial goal, but you will have succeeded in failing the initial goal.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

What happened if Chuck Norris met Rob Swire in a Guitar Hero match?

Duh, Rob Swire would win. It's his job to play a plastic guitar with buttons on it. OH SNAP!

Yeah, but Chuck Norris is epic at anything, so it would be a showdown to the death, until Gareth McGrillen hits Chuck with his Bass guitar...

 

[Jin Roh]

I agree with Geekosaurus. Zero is not infinately small, it just isn't anything. How about truth.
There is no search that can be (successfully) mounted for the truth, it is not lost. Perhaps I shall make myself more clear, but not less cryptic. In the search for fullness, I find myself.

 

[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.

Dude, you're wrong. Accept it.

Do you seriously think that you, a lit student, are smarter than the entire mathematics community, or are you just trolling?

I've never said that. It's because I'm a literature student that I don't understand.

 

[higgs20]

what happens when an unstoppable force hits an unmovable object?

I can't believe this wasn't the first one said.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Basically, what do you think is the world's funniest or most mind-boggling suggested paradox?

Mine is:
What happens if you put super glue on a Teflon-covered frying pan?

Umm... I think we're all missing the big one here in regards to the CIA, FBI,Homeland Security and so on and so forth...
American Intelligence!
/thread.
-Tabs<3-