Paradox

Ok, I enjoy a good Paradox, but I have only seen a few. If you have a Paradox please post it here and we can see it we can solve it.

Thanks All :cool:

dont know what you mean by solve it, but...
in Hellers' "Catch-22", an old man says [on the topic of war] to an american soldier that "by losing we are winning, and by winning you are losing".

Bertrand Russell's Barber Paradox

Consider all of the men in a small town as members of a set. Now imagine that a barber puts up a sign in his shop that reads I shave all those men, and only those men, who do not shave themselves.
Obviously, we can further divide the set of men in this town into two further sets, those who shave themselves, and those who are shaved by the barber. To which set does the barber himself belong?

The barber cannot shave himself, because he has said he shaves only those men who do not shave themselves. Further, he cannot not shave himself, because he shaves all men who do not shave themselves!

The most famous one:
"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

A. Sentence B is true.

B. Sentence A is false.


If sentence A is true, then B is false, and if B is false then A must also be false. But if sentence A is false, then B must be true, and if B is true, then A must be true. In this case neither sentence talks about itself, but taken together they keep changing the value of the other, so that eventually, we are unable to say whether either sentence is true or false.

That's an old one.

Ok I got a couple.

If you are running in a race and you over take the second person what place are you in?

Next Tina Father has five daughters Ne Ne, No No, Po Po, Bo Bo and who?


If you are running a race and over take the person in last which place are you in?

Whizkid2300

whizkid the only one of those you could call a paradox is the last one ... the other two are merely puzzles... the answers to which are

second

tina

impossible because to overtake the last person you would have to be either last yourself (and overtaking yourself in a race could be a bit difficult - unless you enter a parallell universe!) or not in the race to begin with.

Z

Hey Zone stop spoiling my fun.

LOL

It was just a spare thought ok a paradox.

I will be back in a couple of hours.

Got to go back to work.

Whizkid2300

LOL @ whizkid..... ahh I'm sorry chap.... I'm just in a very 'exacting' mood today things have to be 'just so' any deviation is not allowed :D (j/k)

fortunately I have now finsihed work for the day <relaxed sigh>

Z

i will probably miss remember this one but it is a classic so I am sure someone will correct me.
A Greek philosopher came up with this paradox, a rabbit and a turtle raced, the turtle got a head start and when the rabbit started he closed half the distance between himself and the turtle every second but he would never reach the turtle because the distance could always be halved.

This also led to the greatest rebuttal of a paradox ever. to miss quote Aristotle "Disproved by walking."