Zeno Of Elea Research Paper

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Sierra Morales-Hallmark Mr. Stewart Geometry P3 April 13th, 2015 Extra Credit Research Project Zeno of Elea was a greek philosopher circa 490-430 bc, and is best known for his discovery of and work with a series of paradoxes concerning infinity and infinitesimals. It is said that Aristotle considered him the inventor of the dialectic. While his work is referenced often in both current and ancient writings, none of his written work is actually still in existence. His first thesis, however, has been paraphrased as “If being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like." Zeno produced no less than 40 arguments revealing contradiction, though only nine are widely known. He is best known for what are now referred to as Zeno’s Paradoxes. Zeno’s Paradoxes are a set of philosophical problems that address and support Parmenides’ doctrine that is based around the belief that plurality and change are mistaken, and the motion is merely an illusion. The purpose of Zeno’s paradoxes is best known the be "To show that their hypothesis that …show more content…

The Achilles and Tortoise paradox refers to the idea that Achilles, despite his incredible speed, is incapable of catching a head-start tortoise because by the time Achilles catches up to any given goal position the tortoise will have moved f beyond that position. The Dichotomy paradox refers to the idea that prior to travelling a certain given distance, an object must travel a distance d/2. The Arrow paradox refers to the idea that a flying arrow has an ‘instantaneous position’ at a specific moment in time. In that moment, it is ‘indistinguishable from a motionless arrow in the same position’. Lastly, a Stade paradox is a paradox that is raised from the assumption that both time and space can be divided by one and only one definite

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