Think about these

[Guest]

1. that depends on which was better made.

2. the fountain does not exist, therefore the man cant drown there.

3. Yes, i accept. regardless of my capability to complete the mission, i still have to accept the mission before i can fail.

4. she would still be alive travelling in a path in the 5th dimension which is an alternate interpretation to the events that happened at that time.

5. temperature can be measured in kelvin as well. heat is generated by the movement of particles, which can vary in how vigorous its movements are.

6. then according to the theory of relativity, time slows down since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (unless the car becomes nothing)

7. the law of conservation of matter states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. therefore no rock has been created in the first place.

Science and logic aces everything

[Guest]

That one about the speed of light isn't right because the speed of light would be relative. If you were going at the speed of light in your car, the headlights would be going at 2x the speed of light (relative to an observer looking at your car - but to you they'd just be going at the speed of light).

IT'S RELATIVE. Your argument is invalid.

[Guest]

That one about the speed of light isn't right because the speed of light would be relative. If you were going at the speed of light in your car, the headlights would be going at 2x the speed of light (relative to an observer looking at your car - but to you they'd just be going at the speed of light).

IT'S RELATIVE. Your argument is invalid.

Not so. The "speed of light" is an absolute (although light can travel slower than this speed) even within Relativity physics.

The is no "2x the speed of light", in fact in Einstein's relativity physics it doesn't even make sense. Everything travels at the speed of light in spacetime, any movement at any speed (in space and or time) is a trade off from that absolute 'speed' in spacetime. It is this that leads to the counter-intuitive conclusion that as one travels (speeds) in space, one 'slows down' through time (experimental evidence bears this out.)

Our car going at the speed of light; the headlights would appear to a stationary observer to go at the same speed as the car (would fail to extend at all, both going at light speed), and from the perspective driver it would, at any slower speed, appear to speed out from the car at the speed of light relative to the car. The difference would be due to the two observers travelling through time at different speeds.

BUT at the speed of light the car would no longer be travelling through time at all, all the speed would be taken up by its speed through space only, none left for time, so time would cease entirely for the in-car observer; thus from their perspective nothing would happen/change, as no time would pass!

[Guest]

#7 has an answer, and it is a cinch. If you are in the car going the speed of light, your headlights shoot away from you at the speed of light (since it's a constant, it can do nothing but) However, a bystander watching as you whoosh by will see your headlights not extending from the from of your car whatsoever. To him the light will be pooling in the headlights, otherwise it would be going faster then light. In this way C stays constant for all observers. Simple.

Oh, I left one thing out... As the car approaches the speed of light, it's mass approaches infinite, so the bystander gets hit by the car the instant he sees it, and doesn't have time to come to any terribly advanced thoughts about where the headlights are.

Bystander sees the car moving with velocity "c" and according to relativity also sees the light from the headlights traveling at velocity "c" so as you said

the light will "pool" according to the observer. As the vehicle approaches "c" it will become more massive but that does not imply that it gets bigger...car

could presumably just become more dense and according to the relativistic principle of length contraction the car would actually seem smaller than it's

original size from the observer's perspective....yea I sound like a snob, sorry.

[Guest]

Our car going at the speed of light; the headlights would appear to a stationary observer to go at the same speed as the car (would fail to extend at all, both going at light speed), and from the perspective driver it would, at any slower speed, appear to speed out from the car at the speed of light relative to the car. The difference would be due to the two observers travelling through time at different speeds.

BUT at the speed of light the car would no longer be travelling through time at all, all the speed would be taken up by its speed through space only, none left for time, so time would cease entirely for the in-car observer; thus from their perspective nothing would happen/change, as no time would pass!

If time stops for an object traveling the speed of light, explain how a photon can decay.

[Guest]

If time stops for an object traveling the speed of light, explain how a photon can decay.

Can they?

I suppose there is room for conditions in which they do, as photons are slowed (slightly) when they pass through a medium, in such cases time would pass relative to them. It hear it may also be possible through some quantum physics models.

Note: I am no physicist, never claimed to be.

Edited May 23, 2011 by ADParker

[Hidden G]

maybe i'm late but i want to post my ideas and i hope i get yours because after all it's a paradox and lots of points of views

for 1 :i think one of them has to be better ,(better makers

) or if they are the same then their power's intensity has to be the same (Fb=Fbp) so they would be a collision but don't know the solution

for 2 :he'll be stuck in a life time pain as drowning and surviving again

for 3 : well it's an impossible question,it's a real paradox

for 4 : it's tricky: the girls will kill her GM so she won't be born,then she won't kill her GM,if true than her GM would stay alive and she would kill her again ......so this action will be repeating for infinity

for 6 : like 3

for 7 : i don't have an answer i haven't completed my high school yet and don't know much about light and it's consequences (i have ideas)

i have a bit of a paradox :there's 2 ideas of life's origin:

GOD created life and universe.but before he did ,what was there before this(WHAT'S THE START POINT)

or some bio and chemical reactions and the sane before they started what was happening and what their origin???? can i get responds

[Guest]

maybe i'm late but i want to post my ideas and i hope i get yours because after all it's a paradox and lots of points of views

Hi Hidden G

I will colour code your comments, due to the quote tag limitations of this forum.

Bold: The offered challenge

Red: Your response.

Plain black: My response.

1. Let's say (hypothetically) there is a bullet, which can shoot through any barrier. Let's say there is also an absolutely bullet-proof armour, and nothing gets through it. What will happen, if such bullet hits such armour?

for 1 :i think one of them has to be better ,(better makers ) or if they are the same then their power's intensity has to be the same (Fb=Fbp) so they would be a collision but don't know the solution

Agreed. I think it a 'true' paradox given the wording. If the one is truly unstoppable (capable of going through anything) and the other unbreachable (nothing can go through it) then both can't possibly exist in the same reality, as their properties contradict.

2. Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?

for 2 :he'll be stuck in a life time pain as drowning and surviving again

I don't know about that. Maybe.

It all depends on how the fountain bestows eternal life.

If you achieve eternal life before drowning then no you can't drown. But only if "internal life included the immunity from drowning. Some definitions wouldn't.

If it is possible to drown in it before gaining that ability, then you may well drown before doing so. (I remember one story in which someone died because they failed to boil the water before drinking it. HA!)

3. Your mission is to not accept the mission. Do you accept?

for 3 : well it's an impossible question,it's a real paradox

Not at all. In fact once you get your head around it, it is trivially simple:

If you accept the mission: Then that's fine. Except that you immediately fail it. The challenge doesn't require that you accept it with any chance of success.

If you don't accept it: Then that is fine too. It just so happens that in doing so you also meet the parameters of completing the mission, but it matters not; because you never took it on anyway. Just because I didn't take the job of making hamburgers doesn't mean I can't make burgers anyway, it just wouldn't be as a part of my job (wouldn't get paid for it etc.)

No big deal.

4. This girl goes into the past and kills her Grandmother. Since her Grandmother is dead the girl was never born, if she was never born she never killed her grandmother and she was born.

for 4 : it's tricky: the girls will kill her GM so she won't be born,then she won't kill her GM,if true than her GM would stay alive and she would kill her again ......so this action will be repeating for infinity

One possibility of many.

A reply I made

Basically "This girl" goes back in time and kills her Grandmother (assuming this is done at a point prior to her parent's birth - otherwise the solution is too easy) and from then on lives in a reality in which she is never born, but simply appears from a timeline (however the time travel was achieved) other than the one she now lives in. For her, and her alone, history was that she was born: her Grandmother had her moher/father who produced her... Then travelled back causing history to be replaced with something different. In no way does this negate the fact that those events occurred to bring her into the world. Even though they are never experienced by anyone in the new reality she finds herself in, but her.

5. If the temperature this morning is 0 degrees and the Weather Channel says, "it will be twice as cold tomorrow,".... What will the temperature be?

Skipped by you.

6. Answer truthfully (yes or no) to the following question: Will the next word you say be no?

for 6 : like 3

Agreed, to a point.

Some try to get around it by saying some other word first, such as "To answer your question; no." And technically this does work, as it doesn't specifically state that your very next word MUST be either Yes or No. If it was, then the paradox would stand. (Which I think was the point of the challenge - the author simply has to realise that one has to be extremely careful in formulating such challenges.)

I freely admit that I was in error in earlier posts when I said that this was definitely a true paradox. It would have been if worded more carefully.

7. What happens if you are in a car going the speed of light and you turn your headlights on?

for 7 : i don't have an answer i haven't completed my high school yet and don't know much about light and it's consequences (i have ideas)

That is a good response actually; admitting one's ignorance is a good sign or intellectual maturity. Well done.

This one is a goody. The answer lies in Einstein's theory of relativity.

Basically: If a car could travel at the speed of light, time for the car (and driver) would effectively cease. The science is cool but complex. But basically everything moves through spacetime at "the speed of light". If one travels at the speed of light in space, then no speed is left over for travelling through time!

My earlier posts on this:

The question assumes a scientific impossibility: One can't turn on their headlights if they have no time in which to do it!

If the headlights were already on then it would appear as normal for the driver: The headlights would looks like they are beaming out at the speed of light ahead of the car. A stationary observer however would see a car and it's headlight beams travelling at the same speed as each other (the speed of light.) The apparent contradiction is done away with when one realises that time is experienced differently for the two observers; time is "relative."

8. I conclude with this challenge:

Let the God Almighty create a stone, which he can not pick up (is not capable of lifting)!

You missed that one too. And it's my favourite!

So here you go:

Okay, on to yours.

i have a bit of a paradox :there's 2 ideas of life's origin:

GOD created life and universe.but before he did ,what was there before this(WHAT'S THE START POINT)

or some bio and chemical reactions and the sane before they started what was happening and what their origin???? can i get responds

Not really a paradox, but rather a dilemma. Quite possibly a false dilemma. There may well be other possible answers.

Personally I have seen no remotely compelling evidence for the existence of an intelligent being somehow existing beyond the bounds of spacetime. Let alone of this entity creating anything.

On the other hand I have read many an article (and a paper or two) providing a fair amount of evidence for it being quite possible, probable even, that life arose through basic "natural" chemical interactions.

Extremely briefly:

Before there was life (biology) there was chemistry; the interaction (bonding, breaking..) of chemicals. And before that there was physics.

The physics, which is fascinating; All we know so far is that at some point there was an 'infinitesimally' tiny speck that included all the energy of the universe (it was the universe) which underwent a rapid expansion even which we call "The Big Bang" (originally coined as an insult.)

...

I have a favourite weak hypothesis for this, but wont go into it that much; but to say that all it requires is that "nothing" is the "zero-energy state" that quantum physicists see it as. And that this "nothing" is inherently stable. Leading to a build up of energy (positive and negative; balancing out to a total of zero - the tentatively measured sum total amount of energy in the universe by the way!) Which eventually leads to the Big Bang when the tightly bundled dimensions (quantum physics stuff, Calabi–Yau manifolds and stuff) reaches it's breaking point, leading to the expansion (unbundling) of the three spacial, and one temporal, dimensions: The expanding universe. (Note that string theory etc. implies that there are still as many as 7 dimensions still bundled up.)

But that is little more than conjecture. Cool though; with the only starting point being a state of "nothing"!

...

But how this first got there (if it did) we really don't know. But it is a simple mass of amorphous energy, pre-matter. And the forces of physics (Stephen Hawking hypothesised that only the force known as gravity was required to cause all that followed!)

Then came the early formation of the first atoms from the 'plasma' from the Big Bang event. Those atoms being mainly hydrogen, with a little helium and a smattering of lithium and deuterium ("heavy hydrogen".) A natural result of the expansion, and resulting cooling, of the early universe.

Those atoms colliding (and forming the first, and most abundant, molecule; the Hydrogen molecule [H₂]) eventually causing the gravitational 'crunching' of matter being gravitationally attracted to one another, leading to the formation, and ignition, of the first stars.

The gravitational effects of those stars sparking of nuclear fission, and thus the formation of heavier elements (atoms.)

This, by the way, led to the second most common molecule; H₂O, water!

Also by the way; only the explosion of stars (Novas) give rise the the really heavy elements (heavier than iron.) Which is why they are universally less common.

These elements began chemical interaction; resulting in more and more molecules.

Some of which are biochemical molecules (comprised of carbon.)

Including amino acids, the very building blocks of life; which are now known to form naturally even in the depths of space!

...

Planets formed from the Accretion discs of stars. We now know of dozens, if not hundreds of these.

Some, one at least, had the 'right' environment, in which those amino acids etc. combined in just the 'right' way to form the first Self-replicating molecules. Molecules that naturally (due to their make up) make copies, imperfect copies, of themselves.

Abiogenesis is now far enough along to say with some confidence that we now "know" that it is perfectly reasonable to accept that natural (biochemical) abiogenesis is perfectly possible.

...

From there the evolution of life (at what point Self replicating biological molecules become "life" is fuzzy) takes hold.

And here we are.

No mystical super-entities ,somehow existing by "mysterious" means, required. Which is good, because that only throws up even more problems. It is explaining a mystery by postulating (without evidence) an even greater mystery!

[Guest]

For #6, that's easy- no. Unless, of course, the mission is also not to die and the punishment for not accepting is death. However, I may just be thinking of it too simply.

[Guest]

Sorry, I meant number 3

[Hidden G]

well,i liked your explanation ADParker. and i want to say that for my answers 3 and 6 i should have thought more deeply in those questions not just see the direct answer but the hidden ones too .and i for 4 i saw another meaning for it.

for 1 it's TRue those two things can't exist in the same reality.

i skipped 5 for ,a bit like the reason of 7, but i think it would stay 0 lets say "none" because 0 is in celsius ,but i think if we transforme it for exemple to Fahrenheit 32 will be 64 and it will be still i think the same if we return it to C meaning 0.am i right?

and thank you for explaining 7 for me it gave me a wide idea of it .

and i saw your reply for 8 it was good and also proved a good point .

and for the reply to mine ,you proved your point but what i was asking didn't appear true,i said life and i meant,well everything,before the Big Bang and the tiny energy in the universe.

[Guest]

well,i liked your explanation ADParker.

Thanks. T'was fun.

nd i want to say that for my answers 3 and 6 i should have thought more deeply in those questions not just see the direct answer but the hidden ones too

Yup. That's the thing of logic; hidden meaning can often be found if you look carefully enough. Hidden evidence that the implied meaning is bogus as well, at times.

.and i for 4 i saw another meaning for it.

Yeah, as I said; there can be many.

i skipped 5 for ,a bit like the reason of 7, but i think it would stay 0 lets say "none" because 0 is in celsius ,but i think if we transforme it for exemple to Fahrenheit 32 will be 64 and it will be still i think the same if we return it to C meaning 0.am i right?

Pretty much.

Zero degrees Celsius = 32 Fahrenheit , so "twice as cold" could be 16^o Fahrenheit which = -9^o Celsius.

Or we could go from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Or either to or from Kelvin (although twice as cold as zero^o Kelvin would be a physical impossibility (it is "absolute zero"; -273.15^o Celsius.))

and thank you for explaining 7 for me it gave me a wide idea of it .

Cool. Relativity science is wild. A good book on it (for us laymen) is Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos.

and for the reply to mine ,you proved your point but what i was asking didn't appear true,i said life and i meant,well everything,before the Big Bang and the tiny energy in the universe.

The ultimate mystery still that one.

There are hypotheses, like the ones with "nothing" collapsing into something. But nothing solid.

One interesting thing is however that the science we do have, leads back to the thing that still needs explanation to be relatively simple; containing no complexity whatsoever. Thus unlikely to require any kind of grand complex cause. (Smaller, simpler objects require less to explain them.)

The exciting thing is that this only means that there is more out there for us to learn! And I LOVE THAT!

[Hidden G]

great....

and thank you for the seconds time

[Guest]

"your mission is to not accept the mission. Do you accept?"

If I say yes, then I already failed, seeing as the mission is to not accept. But if the mission is to not accept, then I shouldn't ever be on the mission to begin with, meaning I cannot have failed.

On the other hand, if I don't accept, then I have succeeded. However, because I did not accept the mission, again, I cannot be on the mission. So I couldn't have succeeded.

Either way, it's mission impossible XD

I'll take a crack at number 1. I think...that the bullet will go halfway, but not come out the other side. The bullet can go through any surface, and nothing can go ALL THE WAY through the armor.

[Guest]

1. Both objects will cease to exist

2. He will not be able to breathe, but will somehow live.

3. no comments

4. The girl will cease to exist the moment her grandmother dies (she will simply vanish ).

5. don't know

6. maybe...

7. U won't see any light in front of the car.

8. Maybe cpottiing is right.

Not a problem. God creates a pebble and then declares "I shall never pick it up". He is capable of lifting it, but can not break his promise. Conditions met.

[Guest]

Well number 2 the "fountain of eternal life" you would not be able to drown, since the waters give you eternal life. You would probably, however, not be able to breath and would feel much discomfort, but if the waters really give you eternal life, then you wouldn't die.

As for number 7, technically you would have turned into energy, moving at the speed of light, but if we are 'pretending' that this is possible, then the light from your headlights would never move ahead of you, therefore it would appear to the driver that nothing happened, because the light would stay at the same point, because you would always be at the end of the beam. But, if other people could see you, they would see light coming from the headlights, but it wouldn't extend farther than the filament of the bulb.

And for number 1, I would think that only one of the two could exist, if any. For if they both existed, the bullet could not bounce of the armor, because that would imply that the bullet isn't what it was described to be. And, the bullet cannot pierce the armor, because that would imply that the armor isn't what it was described to be. So, if they both HAD to exist, then either one of them doesn't fit the description, or they would both disintegrate.

As for number 5, we would need to know what temperature scale. If it is kelvin, it is impossible to get any colder, because that is absolute zero. But if it is not kelvin, then you could change to a different unit of measurement, where you can multiply by 2 for a negative and divide by 2 for a positive measurement.

[Guest]

Think about these - Back to the Paradoxes

4. This girl goes into the past and kills her Grandmother. Since her Grandmother is dead the girl was never born, if she was never born she never killed her grandmother and she was born.

Well she could just got to yesterday and kill her grandma. Then she would still be born.

[voider]

4) When she is standing in front of her dead grandmother, I don't think she would be so willing to accept the "she never killed her grandmother" theory.

In modern science fiction time travel terms, "traveling back in time" is transferring matter (~teleportation/creation/destruction...) to a different time in an equivalent parallel universe (it was identical and equivalent until the time travel occurred; that then changes the whole future after the destination time.)

Universe #1 is the "original" universe.

Universe #2 is a parallel universe.

-Girl travels back in time. She is now in universe #2. She cannot get back to #1 even if she tried to return immediately (she would find the "back to the future" is different to her original "present").

-Girl kills grandmother.

There is nothing questionable about it other than in the physics of time travel; her existence is not paradoxical as she simply appeared from nothing in #2.

I opened the spoilers in your signature by Tab + Enter, but naturally I did not stop in time and gave you a reputation mark - actually I don't know whether it was +1 or -1 due to a bug.

[Guest]

For number 5, couldn't you simply convert it into celsius/farenhieght, halve the convertion and then convert it back. I have gone and done this from celsius to farenheight, it would be -8.88888888888889 degrees celsius.

[Hidden G]

Well she could just got to yesterday and kill her grandma. Then she would still be born.

Ella i think u should we should think in what is written if so this sentence "had" no place here

[Guest]

Here are my thoughts on these paradoxes --

1. Let's say (hypothetically) there is a bullet, which can shoot through any barrier. Let's say there is also an absolutely bullet-proof armour, and nothing gets through it. What will happen, if such bullet hits such armour?

This is a HYPOTHETICAL situation, as has been stated. If such a thing is impossible (which it very well may be) then how can there be a physically real answer for something that isn't even possible? I don't think there is a serious answer for this one ^_~

2. Can a man drown in the fountain of eternal life?

Again, a hypothetical idea. The answer to this one depends on the interpretation of the terms. If one were to compare this one to the previous one, the thing that (I think) would be first noticed is the fact that one was clashing one impossibility with another; two was clashing one impossible with a, shall we say, "non-impossible". Thus, my answer for two would probably be that no, a man cannot drown in the fountain of eternal life, because the fountain of eternal life would, theoretically, prevent the man from dying (whereas nothing says the man MUST drown).

3. Your mission is to not accept the mission. Do you accept?

If I said no, that means I do not accept the mission, and thus although I completed the mission, I declined it and so it does not count. If I said yes and then another mission was presented, which was declined...well, there you go. That's all I could think of.

4. This girl goes into the past and kills her Grandmother. Since her Grandmother is dead the girl was never born, if she was never born she never killed her grandmother and she was born.

What is the question for this one? If it is questioning the possibility of this, then I believe physics has not yet revealed enough of itself to us for us to be able to predict such a thing. Yet, if the theory in Timeline is accepted, then when the girl kills her grandmother it shall have no affect on her universe, as the grandmother she killed will have belonged to an alternate timeline/universe.

5. If the temperature this morning is 0 degrees and the Weather Channel says, "it will be twice as cold tomorrow,".... What will the temperature be?

Solving this question requires basic equations. The common mistake, I take it, is that someone will misinterpret this as "it will be twice as cold as today's temperature tomorrow", when, however, it merely says it will be twice as cold. This does not necessarily mean today's temperature multiplied by two. It means today's "cold" multiplied by two. This can be represented as X*2 = ? . X can be found by figuring out what temperature, exactly, means cold. If we were to interpret cold to mean "less than the average temperature", then first we need to find the average temperature, which (in San Francisco <http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/USCA0987>) is 58.(3) (fifty-eight point three recurring) as of 2011. I'm rounding this to just 58. So, "less than average" is 57 and below. In other words, X is equal to 57 because 57-0=57. Thus, 57 is the measurement of how cold it is TODAY. To put this in an equation, 57*2 = 114, which is twice as cold as it is today. This means that tomorrow's temperature will be 57-114, which would equal (-57). Thus, tomorrow's temperature is -57 degrees.

6. Answer truthfully (yes or no) to the following question: Will the next word you say be no?

Couldn't think of an answer. I'll just stick with, "nope".

7. What happens if you are in a car going the speed of light and you turn your headlights on?

Nothing with mass can go the speed of light...

8. I conclude with this challenge:

Let the God Almighty create a stone, which he can not pick up (is not capable of lifting)!

I agree with cpotting: "Not a problem. God creates a pebble and then declares "I shall never pick it up". He is capable of lifting it, but can not break his promise. Conditions met." Only, because of the wording of the problem, I would say that he is NOT capable of lifting it because of his promise.

[Hidden G]

Well she could just got to yesterday and kill her grandma. Then she would still be born.

but if u take this question that way then why doesn't she kill her grandma NOW.

[Guest]

but if u take this question that way then why doesn't she kill her grandma NOW.

...and save herself the trouble of first inventing time travel.

[Hidden G]

...and save herself the trouble of first inventing time travel.

hahaha yep, i was going to reply for ETERNA a bit like how u did to me,but i say i'll leave it to u cz u have more knowledge .

[Guest]

7. First of all, according to general relativity, nothing can move at the speed of light, and nothing can exceed the speed of light. There's no such thing as "above the speed of light". With that concluded, number 7 is deemed impossible.

1 & 8. The irresistible force vs. immovable object paradox has been around for a long time, (as seen in 1 & 8) and science's best guess is that it'll create another big bang as the result of electrons and waves imploding and expanding at once.

4. Time Travel has a lot more paradoxes which you will need to take into consideration. The best explanation is this: One cannot occupy the same space as their future self. But, as you travel back in time, we must assume the duration there surpasses an hour, maybe two, to locate and kill your ancestor. During this time your cells will be replaced and you will therefore, in theory, be an entirely new person - Manipulating time and space therefore becomes possible, hypothetically.

2. Obviously, yes he can. The fountain of eternal life states that a man may live forever, it does not say he will. If it was the "fountain of immortality" perhaps the outcome would be different. As for turtles - They can live for way more than a hundred years, but there's no saying they will. A human can become up to 120 years, maybe more, but few do. Just because your lifespan is extended, it does not mean you'll get to the end of it - It depends on so many factors.