A Conversation for Zeno's Paradox
So how is motion possible then???
Half a dent Started conversation May 16, 2001
After reading the other entries, I noticed the following absence -> how does motion actually happen?
It's all very well quoting equations like v=d/t, and geometric series and stuff, but how does motion actually work???
This, after all, is what Zeno wanted to know. Obviously he moved during his lifetime, so knew it was possible, but how?
If space is discrete and there is a smallest distance, how do you get from one unit to the next? Can a particle fully be in two units at once? I would have to say 'no', or else it could be in infinite units at once, and fill the universe.
Can it disappear from one unit, then appear in another? Then where is it when it is disappeared? Could it go to some particle storage place (and hence not be in the universe as we know it)? Or does it have to simultaneously disappear/reappear? What does that mean?
Quantum mechanics says that there is a wavefunction which describes the probability of finding a particle somewhere. This wavefunction spans very many 'planks' (if they exist, see other conversation thread), and somehow flows from one to another. The more planks covered, the less value the wavefunction has, which somehow seems to say that the particle exists 'less' at each plank. So we have something that describes nature at sub-fundamental particle level - which implies that particles are not really the true 'fundamental' substances of the universe. So what is?
Relativity describes motion, but has no microscopic description of how it happens. So maybe the universe can't be described microscopically? So what the hell is the universe then?
If you think motion is easy, and Zeno's paradox is trivial, please answer the above queries.
And I have some more if anyone is interested...
So how is motion possible then???
WeS Posted Aug 10, 2001
This is an annoying quirk of calculus. The arrow moves an infinite number of zero distances, and infinity times zero is a finite number. Which one? All of them unfortunately.
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So how is motion possible then???
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