The Infinite Tortoise : The Curious Thought Experiments of History's Great Thinkers

 

From Plato’s Cave to Descartes' Demon, great thinkers have used thought experiments and paradoxes to try and work out complex ideas in the simplest way possible. Among the most famous thought experiments is Zeno’s Achilles and the Tortoise: if Achilles is faster than the tortoise, why will Achilles never catch up with the tortoise when it starts ahead of him? Zeno proposes that, when Achilles reaches the point where the tortoise started the race, the tortoise will have already moved on. And as Achilles runs on to where the tortoise was last, when he reaches that point the tortoise has moved again. Therefore poor Achilles will never catch up with the tortoise as the distance he must run gets smaller and smaller and each time he has less and less time to run. Starting in Ancient Greece, Joel Levy guides us through the mind-bending world of thought experiments and their role in revealing the complexity of morality, exploring the limitations and the infinite possibilities of the human mind.

Joel Levy is a journalist and author specializing in science and history. His books include Why We Do the Things We Do, A Curious History of Mathematics, and Why? Answers to Everyday Scientific Questions.