Mathematical Paradox
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
How is this peculiar and highly questionable statement relevant?
I'm guessing the limiting factor in frog jumps has to do with frog motor neurons and muscles. I suspect there is a minimum muscle twitch size that can move the body of a frog in a way that fits the general concept "jump" and that motion is on a much, much bigger scale than Planck lengths....
However, as a philosophical construct, there will always be a half distance. The frog is irrelevant other than an object that people can grasp. Could be a Tse Tse fly trying to bite people.....or a carnivorous molecule.
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Let us a assume a frog jumps half a distance to it's destination. Therefore, its jumps would account as: 1/2 the distance + 1/4 the distance + 1/8 the distance and so forth.
Essentially, 1/2n
Would it ever reach its destination? Well I have computed that formula numerous amount of time and mathematically, it always results as impossible to reach.
Or perhaps not...
Some theoretical mathematicians have argued theoretically, after a googleplex of times, the destination would be reach as the resulting step is a positive integer. Infinitely small, yes, but nevertheless a positive integer.
Do the same laws of mathematics still apply when one reaches an enormous, unfathomable value?
Please discuss.
Look up Series and Convergence on wikipedia. Sum of 1/2^n from n = 1 to infinity is 1.
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I don't think it would. If it is going 1/2 of the speed it previously went, it would gradually narrow down. 1/2, 1/4, ect, until is wouldn't be able to make a significant difference, and would just look as if it was standing still.
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How much pi do you need? Is related.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-much-pi-do-you-need/
I think the answer is yes, if you'll grant me a little snark.
Whole numbers are only a very gross grasp on the real world, transcendental measurements are all that exist in the real world, there is never a 50% reduction in distance in the physical world that is known. Therefore the modeling system is "too clean" to provide an accurate description. This allows our imaginary frog to behave exactly as we see fit.
You might put the frog inside a black hole, where he is to escape from, with the desperate and sad effect that he can only approach the event horizon yet never reach it. This of course assumes that a frog inside of black hole is still a frog and is capable of moving toward a goal.
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"If I knew that it was fated for me to be sick, I would even wish for it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would volunteer to get muddy." - Chrysippus
I think the OP may have been thinking along the lines that the entity doing the "jumping" (frog, nanorobot, or bacterium, or whatever) would make random errors in calculating its jumps. Further-that that randomness itself can be quantified.
Kinda like the concept of "standard deviation" (the average that student scores on a test deviate from the mean of all the scores).
A perfect Euclidean frog would NEVER reach the opposite wall.
But our imperfect frog (with its quantified amount of imperfection)halves its distance with each jump, but it makes some average error in making these "halved" distances. And that these errors can be graphed in some way to allow you to predict when the "frog" actually does hit the wall due to these errors.
Lets say that the frog is off by an average of one percent each jump, and that that amount of error can be either direction.
Not sure how it would work, but maybe you could graph (or calculate with an equation) when a frog of say five percent average deviation would hit the wall....as a opposed to a later model frog with a more accurate one percent average deviation. That is- how many jumps it would take for a frog of given jump accuracy ability to reach the opposite wall.
Our frog is what happens when an unstoppable frog and an immovable frog have babies.
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"If I knew that it was fated for me to be sick, I would even wish for it; for the foot also, if it had intelligence, would volunteer to get muddy." - Chrysippus
i think if there is a paradox associated with the OP, it would be that something can be moving with a positive velocity forever without ever covering a finite distance.
it stems from the illusory notion that reality can be quantified.
for example, there is the notion of the "point". if a point has no dimensions, then the "next" or "adjacent" point to it in a theoretical line is zero distance away from it, therefore it is the same point. there fore all points in a line are the same point, and therefore a theoretical line is an impossibility.
yet the notion of a line is fundamental to the notion of a plane which is fundamental to the notion of volume or space, so everything is an illusion since all the points that comprise it do not exist in reality.
S = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + 1/128 + 1/256 + . . .
2S = 2 x (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + 1/128 + 1/256 + . . . )
2S = 2/2 + 2/4 + 2/8 + 2/16 + 2/32 + 2/64 + 2/128 + 2/256 + . . .
2S = 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + 1/128 + 1/256 + . . .
2S = 1 + S
S = 1
1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + 1/128 + 1/256 + . . . = 1
If each jump takes constant time, then not taking the Planck Length into account, it would take infinite time.
However, the OP's statement of the problem is highly flawed in that it introduces a step that takes real time and thus misses the point of the so-called paradox.
For a clearer presentation, consider the classic example of an arrow flying at a target. It covers half the distance in half the time, then a quarter of the distance in a quarter of the time, then an eighth of the distance in an eighth of the time, and so on.
Some who have little understanding of math see this as meaning it never gets to the target. In reality, the arrow maintains its velocity (in real life it will lose a little due to drag) and will hit the target right on time.
Let us a assume a frog jumps half a distance to it's destination. Therefore, its jumps would account as: 1/2 the distance + 1/4 the distance + 1/8 the distance and so forth.
Essentially, 1/2n
Would it ever reach its destination? Well I have computed that formula numerous amount of time and mathematically, it always results as impossible to reach.
Or perhaps not...
Some theoretical mathematicians have argued theoretically, after a googleplex of times, the destination would be reach as the resulting step is a positive integer. Infinitely small, yes, but nevertheless a positive integer.
Do the same laws of mathematics still apply when one reaches an enormous, unfathomable value?
Please discuss.
This is the classic Xeno Paradox. Yes, the rules of mathematics still apply if you introduce the idea of limits.
Actually, it's not Xeno's Paradox because the frog makes discrete hops. By their very nature, each hop takes time and it takes infinite time to take infinitely many hops. If you measure the velocity of travel of the frog, it is constantly decreasing with a limit of zero.
In Xeno's Paradox, the frog would have to maintain a constant velocity which it cannot do with infinitely many hops.
However, the OP's statement of the problem is highly flawed in that it introduces a step that takes real time and thus misses the point of the so-called paradox.
For a clearer presentation, consider the classic example of an arrow flying at a target. It covers half the distance in half the time, then a quarter of the distance in a quarter of the time, then an eighth of the distance in an eighth of the time, and so on.
Some who have little understanding of math see this as meaning it never gets to the target. In reality, the arrow maintains its velocity (in real life it will lose a little due to drag) and will hit the target right on time.
I think may not have written the problem down correctly, however I have recently discovered that many mathematicians have conjectured that when a complex number axiom is introduced near an infinitesimally close posture to '1', '1' may indeed be reached if mathematical gymnastics and pseudo-rimannian series are introduced.
That is the kind of 'food-for-thought' I attempted to introduce.
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Sebastian
"Don't forget to floss." - Darkwing Duck
The answer is the same as this riddle:
Let's say you are flogging a dead horse with arm motions n units long, but you get tired quickly. So, every time you flog, you only flog half the distance of the previous stroke. After how many flogs does your arm stop?
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Let's say you are flogging a dead horse with arm motions n units long, but you get tired quickly. So, every time you flog, you only flog half the distance of the previous stroke. After how many flogs does your arm stop?
Are you implying that this tread is a "dead horse" being flogged?
Just kidding!
But more interesting is this: what would be the distance of that last stroke with the whip?
Is the answer
(A)One over infinity. That is: it would be the reciprocal of infinity times N (the length of the original stroke of the whip)?
Or is it:
(B) The Planck Length (the theoretical shortest possible distance for anything in this here universe we live in)?
Good question! It just depends about whether we're (a) talking about a pure mathematical puzzle, or (b) a mathematical puzzle with randomness in measurement, or (c) a physical puzzle.
IMO this is where this particular thread got hung up. That said, I like the idea of the flogging arm asymptoting down into a quivering little vibration. At some point perhaps it would make sound, then radio waves, then maybe light.
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