DOES MOTION EXIST?

Zeno presented four main paradoxes, each of which was designed to show the impossibility of
motion. They can be thought of as breaking down into two sub-arguments: one assumes that space
and time are continuous — in the sense that between any two moments of time, or locations in
space, there is another moment in time, or location, in space — or one assumes that they are not.
Either way, Zeno will argue, motion is impossible. (An example of something which is continuous is
the set of real numbers; the series of natural numbers, on the other hand, is not continuous.

1. If space and time are continuous, motion is impossible

First, suppose that space and time are continuous. Zeno presents two paradoxes to show that, on
this supposition, motion is impossible.

The Racetrack

Imagine that you are trying to move from point A to point B. Suppose C is the midpoint of the
distance from A to B. It seems that you have to first get from A to C, before you can get from A to B.
Now suppose that D is the midpoint between A and C; just as above, it seems that you have to first
get from A to D before you can get from A to C. Since space is infinitely divisible, this process can be
continued indefinitely. So it seems that you need to complete an infinite series of journeys before
you can travel any distance — even a very short one!

The argument can be laid out like this:

1. Any distance is divisible into infinitely many smaller distances.

2. To move from a point x to a point y, one has to move through all the distances into which the
distance from x to y is divisible.

3. To move from one point to another in a finite time, one has to traverse infinitely many
distances in a finite time. (1,2)

4. It is impossible to traverse infinitely many distances in a finite time.

C. It is impossible to move from one point to another in a finite time. (3,4)

Achilles and the Tortoise

Suppose that the Tortoise and Achilles are racing to some point z, and that Achilles begins at point x,
and the Tortoise begins at point y, where y is between x and z. Then we argue as follows that no
matter what distances are involved, no matter how slow the Tortoise is, and no matter how fast
Achilles is, Achilles can never catch the Tortoise, so long as the Tortoise never stops moving:

1. To traverse the distance between x and y, Achilles requires some interval of time.

2. During every interval of time, the Tortoise moves some distance.

C. By the time Achilles reaches y, the Tortoise is some distance beyond y. (1,2)
Since we made no particular assumptions about the distance between x and y or the length of the
interval of time, it appears that this argument can be repeated infinitely many times, so show that
even after an infinite number of movements and intervals of time, the Tortoise is still ahead of
Achilles. This seems to allow us to conclude:

For every interval of time, at the end of that interval the Tortoise is still ahead of Achilles.

Which means that Achilles never catches the Tortoise. These arguments require an assumption
about the infinite divisibility of time and space.

Ultimate Conclusion: If time or space is infinitely divisible and continuous, then motion is
impossible.

2 Infinite tasks

Clearly, both of these arguments turn on the impossibility of completing tasks that are divisible into
infinitely many sub-tasks. But why is this supposed to be impossible? One thought is that it is
supposed to be impossible for finite beings because completing infinitely many sub-tasks would take
an infinitely long time. Suppose that each of the sub-tasks takes a finite (nonzero) amount of time.
Isn’t the product of an infinite number and a finite number an infinite number? Does this show that
completing infinitely many sub-tasks each of which takes some finite amount of time would take an
infinite length of time? Here’s a different kind of argument to show that it is impossible to perform
infinitely many tasks in a finite time:

Suppose that a lamp is turned on and off infinitely many times during some finite interval — say,
between 3 and 4 pm — that is, the button on the lamp is pressed infinitely many times during that
hour. Before 3:00 and after 4:00, the button is never pushed. Now, at 4:15, is the light on or off?
Every time the light is turned on, this is followed by it being turned off; so it cannot be on. But every
time the light is turned off, this is followed by it being turned on; so it cannot be off. So the light
must be neither on nor off. But that is impossible.

3 If space and time are discrete, motion is impossible

Suppose that we avoid these arguments by holding that space and time are discrete rather than
continuous. Zeno presents two further paradoxes to show that, even if this is true, motion is still
impossible.

The Arrow

1. At any one instant, an arrow does not move.

2. Nothing happens between one instant and the next.

3. The arrow does not move between instants. (2)

C. The arrow does not move. (1,3)

What assumption about time is required to make sense of talk about ‘the next instant’?
Is it valid to infer that something does not move from the assumption that there is no moment at
which it moves?

Compare the following inference: I did not walk to school at any of the moments between my
waking and now; therefore, I did not walk to school today.

The Stadium

Remember that we are supposing that space and time are not continuous, so that we can speak of
the point in space next to another (i.e., with no space in between), and the moment in time after
another (i.e., with no intervening moment). Now consider the following arrangement of particles,
each occupying a spot in a grid of adjacent points in space, in a 3 by 3 of a’s, b’s and c’s:

Now suppose that in the next moment, each of the a-particles moves one spot to the right, and each
of the c-particles moves one spot to the left.

Now consider, for example, particle a and particle c0. In Moment 1, a is to the left of c0; in Moment
2, a is to the right of c0. So it seems that at some point, a must have passed c0. But this is impossible,
since it did not happen at Moment 1, and did not happen at Moment 2, and by hypothesis there is
no moment between the two.

Ultimate Conclusion: If time or space is infinitely divisible and discrete, then motion is impossible.

To return to Zeno’s paradoxes, the solution to all of the mentioned paradoxes then, 9 is that there
isn’t an instant in time underlying the body’s motion (if there were, it couldn’t be in motion), and as
its position is constantly changing no matter how small the time interval, and as such, is at no time
determined, it simply doesn’t have a determined position. In the case of the Arrow paradox, there
isn’t an instant in time underlying the arrows motion at which its volume would occupy just one
block of space, and as its position is constantly changing in respect to time as a result, the arrow is
never static and motionless. The paradoxes of Achilles and the Tortoise and the Dichotomy are also
resolved through this realisation: when the apparently moving body’s associated position and time
values are fractionally dissected in the paradoxes, an infinite regression can then be mathematically
induced, and resultantly, the idea of motion and physical continuity shown to yield contradiction, as
such values are not representative of times at which a body is in that specific precise position, but
rather, at which it is passing through them. The body’s relative position is constantly changing in
respect to time, so it is never in that position at any time. Indeed, and again, it is the very fact that
there isn’t a static instant in time underlying the motion of a body, and that is doesn’t have a
determined position at any time while in motion, that allows it to be in motion in the first instance.
Moreover, the associated temporal (t) and spatial (d) values (and thus, velocity and the derivation of
the rest of physics) are just an imposed static (and in a sense, arbitrary) backdrop, of which in the
case of motion, a body passes by or through while in motion, but has no inherent and intrinsic
relation. For example, a time value of either 1 s or 0.001 s (which indicate the time intervals of 1 and
1.99999.s, and 0.001 and 0.00199999. s, respectively), is never indicative of a time at which a body’s
position might be determined while in motion, but rather, if measured accurately, is a
representation of the interval in time during which the body passes through a certain distance
interval, say either 1 m or 0.001 m (which indicate the distance intervals of 1 and 1.99999.m, and
0.001 and 0.0019999.m, respectively). Therefore, the more simple proposed solution mentioned
earlier to Achilles and the Tortoise and the Dichotomy by applying velocity to the particular body in
motion, also fails as it presupposes that a specific body has precisely determined position at a given
time, thus guaranteeing absolute preciseness in theoretical calculations before the fact i.e. ∆d/∆t=v.
That is, a body in motion simply doesn’t have a determined position at any time, as at no time is its
position not changing, so it also doesn’t have a determined velocity at any time. Lastly, and to
complete the mentioned paradoxes, William James variation on the Dichotomy is resolved through
the same reasoning and the realisation of the absence of a instant in time at which such an
indivisible mathematical time value would theoretically be determined and static at that instant, and
not constantly changing. That is, interval as represented by a clock or a watch (as distinct from an
absent actual physical progression or flow of time) is constantly increasing, whether or not the time
value as indicated by the particular time keeping instrument remains the same for a certain
extended period i.e. at no time is a time value anything other than an interval in time and it is never
a precise static instant in time as it assumed to be in the paradoxes.

HOWEVER WE MUST NOTE, THAT ZENO HIMSELF DID NOT BELIEVE THAT MOTION WAS
IMPOSSIBLE. WE HAVE SOLVED HIS PROBLEMS MORE THAN 2500 YEARS AFTER HE PROPOSED
THEM. HE SIMPLY BELIVED THAT THESE PARADOXES SHOWED THAT AN INFINITE SERIES OF ACTS
CANNOT BE COMPLETED IN A FINITE PERIOD OF TIME AND THAT ARGUMENT STILL STANDS. SO, IF
WE ARE TO ACCEPT THAT THAT IS TRUE, THEN IT ALSO SHOWS THAT THERE WAS HAVE BEEN A
FIRST CAUSE TO THE UNIVERSE BECAUSE AN INFINITE SERIES OF CAUSUAL ACTS CANNOT BE
COMPLETED IN A FINITE AMOUNT OF TIME, THUS, THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A FIRST CAUSE SO
THAT IT WAS A FINITE SERIES OF CASUAL ACTS COMPLETED IN A FINITE AMOUNT OF TIME UP
UNTIL NOW. AND WE KNOW IT IS TRUE BECAUSE PHYSICS HAS PROVED THAT LIGHT BEHAVES THIS
WAY UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.

PROOF OF ZENO’S PARADOXES:

The space yacht’s black hole

Mr Megasoft has bought a very expensive yacht. It is a space yacht, designed with a huge (1,000-
kilometre-wide) solar sail to fly in space. (This works because light actually weighs something. Not
very much, although physicists calculate that about 160 tons of sunlight fall on the earth every day.)
Using the universal force of light waves, the yacht accelerates steadily away from its moorings in low
earth orbit towards the nearest star, at a steady rate of acceleration to produce, as all owners of
sports cars know, a feeling of being pressed backwards in the seats. It creates the equivalent of a
new spaceship gravity, calculated for Megasoft’s comfort, at one ‘g’, approximately equivalent to
that back on earth. In a year, the solar yacht has reached a considerable proportion of the speed of
light although, of course, it is unable to exceed that speed. But when Mr Megasoft looks backwards
he sees something awful behind him: the stars are going out one by one!

Has something happened to the universe?

The space yacht’s black hole

Well, no, the universe can cope even with Mr Megasoft’s space yachts. The problem is a bit like that
signalled all those years ago in Zeno’s paradox of ‘Achilles and the Tortoise’. For the stars behind the
spaceship, Mr Megasoft is in the position of the tortoise in the race. The light has a lot of catching up
to do. Now if the spaceship was going at a constant speed, as today’s spaceships do after their initial
burst of acceleration, the light would indeed catch up, whatever the logic of Zeno’s argument. But as
the spaceship is accelerating all the time, by the time the light has got half-way to where the ship
was, it finds the ship is now going faster, so the next bit of catching up is harder. At a certain point
the light can never catch up, even though the spaceship is still going slower than the lightwaves
chasing after it.

So if even light behaves according to zeno’s idea of motion, what does that mean? How does light
move? Does light travel continuously or discretely?

It suggests that light behaves in a different type of motion of everyday sensual motion that we know
of because Achilles would normally beat the tortoise according to the everyday sensual motion laws.
So light seems outside of these laws. “In the beginning there was nothing, then He created light”

There once was a man who said God

Must think it exceedingly odd

If he finds that this tree

Continues to be

When there’s no one about in the Quad.

Dear Sir, Your astonishment’s odd

I am always about in the Quad

And that’s why the tree

Will continue to be

Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God.