more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Zeno's so-called 'Achilles' claims that the slowest runner will never be caught by the fastest runner, because the one behind has first to reach the point from which the one in front started, and so the slower one is bound always to be in front.
Clarification
'Achilles' was famous for his speed
Gist of Idea
The fast runner must always reach the point from which the slower runner started
Source
report of Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 239b14
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Physics', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 1996], p.161
A Reaction
The point is that the slower runner will always have moved on when the faster runner catches up with the starting point. We must understand how humble the early Greeks felt when they confronted arguments like this. It was like a divine revelation.
| 5109 | The fast runner must always reach the point from which the slower runner started [Zeno of Elea, by Aristotle] |
| 1507 | We don't have time for infinite quantity, but we do for infinite divisibility, because time is also divisible [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| 1508 | Zeno's arrow paradox depends on the assumption that time is composed of nows [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| 1512 | Zeno is wrong that one grain of millet makes a sound; why should one grain achieve what the whole bushel does? [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| 454 | If there are many things they must have a finite number, but there must be endless things between them [Zeno of Elea] |
| 1511 | If everything is in a place, what is the place in? Place doesn't exist [Zeno of Elea, by Simplicius] |
| 455 | That which moves, moves neither in the place in which it is, nor in that in which it is not [Zeno of Elea] |