Classic Question, Modern Answers - Zeno

[DoomYoshi]

So I have devised a little scheme with 3 main objectives
1) broader classical education for the masses
2) highlight the differences in perception around scientific reality
3) showcase the ineptitude of modern scientific education

So here's how it works. I post a classical question - you give the modern answer to the best of your ability (no Google). My prediction is that if there is 20 responses we will get 20 different answers.

Respond to the following claim by Zeno - "An object in motion must be moving in the space it occupies or the space it doesn't occupy. Since the space it occupies is the same size as the object, it leaves no room to move in. It can't move in the space it doesn't occupy because it isn't there. Therefore, motion is impossible".

[jonesthecurl]

Things do move. Therefore the conclusion is wrong, probably because the initial assumptions are invalid. Go find a better model Mr Zeno.

[Bernie Sanders]

So I have devised a little scheme with 3 main objectives
1) broader classical education for the masses
2) highlight the differences in perception around scientific reality
3) showcase the ineptitude of modern scientific education

So here's how it works. I post a classical question - you give the modern answer to the best of your ability (no Google). My prediction is that if there is 20 responses we will get 20 different answers.

Respond to the following claim by Zeno - "An object in motion must be moving in the space it occupies or the space it doesn't occupy. Since the space it occupies is the same size as the object, it leaves no room to move in. It can't move in the space it doesn't occupy because it isn't there. Therefore, motion is impossible".

Your point is invalid, as all things are in motion.

[mrswdk]

DY maybe you should go do another degree, this time in something like coding or engineering.

[tzor]

Respond to the following claim by Zeno - "An object in motion must be moving in the space it occupies or the space it doesn't occupy. Since the space it occupies is the same size as the object, it leaves no room to move in. It can't move in the space it doesn't occupy because it isn't there. Therefore, motion is impossible".

Oh my this is so deep (in silliness.) First there is the notion of the "space it occupies." Since an object can occupy space, the notion that the object can't occupy some other space is illogical since we have already stated that the object in fact can occupy space. Unless you start taking about gravity, space is an abstract concept. You can move it all about as much as you want.

[patches70]

That's the arrow paradox. Zeno is dividing time. We think of ourselves as living in a three dimensional world but we often forget a fourth consideration, in fact we take it for granted. Time.

Where as we are not prisoners in the three dimensions, we can move left, right, jump up and down however we like, we are prisoners in time. The past always moves towards the future but we are forever stuck in the present. In every meeting we have with anything or anyone else there is always a time component. As in if you say you are going to meet someone you must also give a time in addition to the space you are going to meet.
For instance-
If someone says "I'll meet you at the club" you ask "When?"
or
If someone says "I'll meet you are 3 o'clock" you ask "where?"
There is always a time component in regards to when two objects or things meet.

The arrow is moving through space and is going to meet the target at some point in time. Zeno seems to be ignoring this fourth component and if you do that then he is absolutely correct. At any single point in time the arrow isn't moving. At any single point in time nothing is moving. Well, as far as we can tell I suppose. But we dwell within four dimensions and are prisoners in the fourth dimension where as we are quite free in the other three. It's only a paradox when you eliminate time moving. IMO. Or something like that I guess.

[Dukasaur]

The fallacy is in the fact that "the space it occupies" is a fixed space. In fact, it is a dynamically changing space.

To put it another way, the co-ordinates that define "the space it occupies" are variables, not numerals.

[DoomYoshi]

So I think the right answer is that forces are what cause objects to move and forces don't occupy any space.

[Bernie Sanders]

So I think the right answer is that forces are what cause objects to move and forces don't occupy any space.

But they do occupy space.

E=MC squared

E is a force

I'll leave it to the younger folks here to explain this in layman terms.

By the way DoomYoshi, your new avatar is far better than that last one you had.

[Dukasaur]

So I think the right answer is that forces are what cause objects to move and forces don't occupy any space.

But they do occupy space.

E=MC squared

E is a force

I'll leave it to the younger folks here to explain this in layman terms.

By the way DoomYoshi, your new avatar is far better than that last one you had.

E is not force. E is energy, and force is defined as energy per unit area. Without spatial co-ordinates, force is an undefinable concept.

[mookiemcgee]

I'm not super "sciency", but Zeno statements basically does not acknowledge time as a dimension. So, after i started writing this I read what others posted... Now I deleted everything i wrote, and will just say I basically I totally agree with patches - So there Doom, you don't have 20 different answers

Proof that motion exists can also be found in two thing colliding. They cannot exist in the same space, therefore they don't! Zenos example is flawed as it only acknowledges one thing existing, and therefore ignores that motion is a measure of things moving in relation to other things.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

So I think the right answer is that forces are what cause objects to move and forces don't occupy any space.

But they do occupy space.

E=MC squared

E is a force

I'll leave it to the younger folks here to explain this in layman terms.

By the way DoomYoshi, your new avatar is far better than that last one you had.

E is not force. E is energy, and force is defined as energy per unit area. Without spatial co-ordinates, force is an undefinable concept.

That is not how force is defined. Force is the capacity of a body or phenomenon to accelerate a mass, i.e. force equals mass times acceleration. This is seen in gravity, where two (or more) bodies alter their movement in relation to each other (a moon circling a planet), or an electron moving through a wire in response to a magnetic field.

Energy per unit area is something like energy density.

Force is capacity to alter a trajectory, energy is the property which force changes, where work is the force times distance.

As for the time dimension baloney, it's not a separate dimension. Time does not exist, we invent time to explain causality.

Re: op, that is also baloney because the premise is flawed. There is no "space it occupies" because that is not a partitioned object. There is matter and nothingness, and the boundary between the two is determined by the properties of matter, i.e. forces.

It's a prime example of the failure of logic.

-TG

[patches70]

Ya'll know that there is no "right" answer, right? Philosophers and scientists still argue to this day how to answer Zeno's paradox.

Force this force that ain't got nothing to do with it. If you were some sort of movie super mutant and you had the ability to freeze time at a single point and froze time during the arrow's flight, the arrow would indeed be motionless without a doubt. There would be no force acting upon it at that moment, not even gravity because the fucking arrow will be there just floating motionless in mid air.

Zeno comes to the logical conclusion that if the arrow is not moving at a single point in time, and time is merely a string of points and in every one of those single points the arrow won't be moving, well, he comes to the logical conclusion from what he knew.

Of course the arrow is no more free to stop time than we are as the arrow is the same prisoner as we are when it comes to time. We look at the question of think "of course the damn thing is moving! You can watch it go from point A to point B, Zeno is a moron!"
Zeno is delving into concepts of time far ahead of his peers, concepts we explore this very day. There is no good answer to Zeno's paradox because he is absolute correct, the arrow ain't moving if you observe it at a single point in time. You will find no force acting against it at that single point, so you wonder "well what the f*ck happened to the force then?" You won't be able to measure the force at all because to measure the force you have to measure from point A to point B in X amount of time. Get rid of the X and you can't measure shit and you can't determine the amount of force on the arrow.

Take a picture of the arrow in flight and from that picture, of a motionless arrow hovering in mid air, determine the amount of force that was applied to the arrow if you can. I bet you couldn't. Because you don't have enough information.
Now take a video of that same arrow as it leave the bow and hits the target and you sure as shit could measure the force couldn't you?

Get it? No wonder no one can answer the fucking question because it's rigged. This fucking question has been fucking with the minds of greater men than we simpletons on this forum and DY is a prick for asking everyone to give their answer to the question because he knows it's a rigged question.
DY you fucking prick. DIAGF

[Metsfanmax]

So I have devised a little scheme with 3 main objectives
1) broader classical education for the masses
2) highlight the differences in perception around scientific reality
3) showcase the ineptitude of modern scientific education

So here's how it works. I post a classical question - you give the modern answer to the best of your ability (no Google). My prediction is that if there is 20 responses we will get 20 different answers.

Respond to the following claim by Zeno - "An object in motion must be moving in the space it occupies or the space it doesn't occupy. Since the space it occupies is the same size as the object, it leaves no room to move in. It can't move in the space it doesn't occupy because it isn't there. Therefore, motion is impossible".

I am not sure there is a consensus modern argument against this particular statement (in the classical physics regime). What I would offer is that the above requires being able to specify where the object is at a particular instant in time, which is perhaps impossible because there is no way to specify its location in time to infinite precision.

[mrswdk]

It's a prime example of the failure of logic.

-TG

Logic didn't fail, Zeno failed.

[Bernie Sanders]

So I think the right answer is that forces are what cause objects to move and forces don't occupy any space.

But they do occupy space.

E=MC squared

E is a force

I'll leave it to the younger folks here to explain this in layman terms.

By the way DoomYoshi, your new avatar is far better than that last one you had.

E is not force. E is energy, and force is defined as energy per unit area. Without spatial co-ordinates, force is an undefinable concept.

E is a force. Electrical magnetism.

Not all forces are the same.

[2dimes]

Electrical is just electrons. Magnetism is the force.

[tzor]

E is a force.

E is energy and energy is not a force.

In physics, energy is a property of objects which can be transferred to other objects or converted into different forms.[1] The "ability of a system to perform work" is a common description, but it is misleading because energy is not necessarily available to do work.[2] For instance, in SI units, energy is measured in joules, and one joule is defined "mechanically", being the energy transferred to an object by the mechanical work of moving it a distance of 1 metre against a force of 1 newton.[note 1] However, there are many other definitions of energy, depending on the context, such as thermal energy, radiant energy, electromagnetic, nuclear, etc., where definitions are derived that are the most convenient.

Common energy forms include the kinetic energy of a moving object, the potential energy stored by an object's position in a force field (gravitational, electric or magnetic), the elastic energy stored by stretching solid objects, the chemical energy released when a fuel burns, the radiant energy carried by light, and the thermal energy due to an object's temperature. All of the many forms of energy are convertible to other kinds of energy. In Newtonian physics, there is a universal law of conservation of energy which says that energy can be neither created nor be destroyed; however, it can change from one form to another.

All E=MCC means is that not only can energy change from one form to another, energy can change to mass.

[Bernie Sanders]

E is a force.

E is energy and energy is not a force.

In physics, energy is a property of objects which can be transferred to other objects or converted into different forms.[1] The "ability of a system to perform work" is a common description, but it is misleading because energy is not necessarily available to do work.[2] For instance, in SI units, energy is measured in joules, and one joule is defined "mechanically", being the energy transferred to an object by the mechanical work of moving it a distance of 1 metre against a force of 1 newton.[note 1] However, there are many other definitions of energy, depending on the context, such as thermal energy, radiant energy, electromagnetic, nuclear, etc., where definitions are derived that are the most convenient.

Common energy forms include the kinetic energy of a moving object, the potential energy stored by an object's position in a force field (gravitational, electric or magnetic), the elastic energy stored by stretching solid objects, the chemical energy released when a fuel burns, the radiant energy carried by light, and the thermal energy due to an object's temperature. All of the many forms of energy are convertible to other kinds of energy. In Newtonian physics, there is a universal law of conservation of energy which says that energy can be neither created nor be destroyed; however, it can change from one form to another.

All E=MCC means is that not only can energy change from one form to another, energy can change to mass.

Not bad for someone who doesn't believe in science.

[tzor]

Not bad for someone who doesn't believe in science.

Bernie, you wouldn't know what science was if Spock came and nerve pinched you.

Wait, you would be unconscious, Vulcan nerve pinches are no proper way to communicate science. Never mind.