Zenons paradoxes and the Pythagorean zeitgeist

George Mpantes mathematics teacher

www.mpantes.gr

The paradox of dichotomy .

Zeno created probably forty paradoxes but are known only nine .
We will analyze the first of the paradoxes ( paradox of the dichotomy ),
which is easier to understand and contains the data for the interpretation
of

all

the

others.

This

is

as

follows

If a body is moved from A to B, then before reaching the B, passes

through the middle , B1 of AB. Now
moving from B1 must first reach the
middle B2

of the

part B1B , and

continuing the same description we see that the body must move through
an infinite number of distances, so it will move
indefinitely , it never reaches to B, since there is
not last term in the sequence of points, ie
essentially the movement is only apparent and not
actually happening ! It was really paradox , but
Zeno was right in his time.

The history

The paradoxes of Zeno (450 BC) are referring to the change

( movement) and highlight a discrepancy between the experience and its

mathematical interpretation of his era. But changes are mathematically

studied by calculus, so the mathematical investigation of paradoxes will
refers to the Calculus

and as we will see, it is going through to its

foundations. Zeno did not know calculus, and the mathematics of his time
yielded paradoxes and prepared us for what kind of problems we would
meet when we studied changes in the real world. It took twenty five
centuries

for

solving

problems

in

foundations

of

calculus,

which

interpreted mathematically not intuitively, Zenons paradoxes .

Thus, paradoxes remained within the body of mathematics as a
blight for many centuries - interpretation of Aristotle was unique until the
19th century, but it was not a mathematical interpretation - and later
recognized as the beginning of the problem of a rigorous foundation of
calculus, which was invented by Newton and Leibniz in the late 17th
century. Many great mathematicians tried in this direction to banish
intuition of the analysis, but Zeno was the first, who faced the infinitely
procedures exclusively based upon intuition. It took a long time for
philosophers of science to accept that any theoretical concept used in a
physical theory was not required to have its counterpart in our experience
(as Logical positivism ) .
Math and numbers are beings of reason, because as our experience
is finite , how we will approach empirically the mathematical infinity ?
The first result of paradoxes was to change the agenda of Greek
mathematics.
The Greek mathematicians were unable to interpret the paradoxes,
and with the pattern of

the crisis

of irrationals , they removed the

questioning on indefinitely procedures of paradoxes, in Geometry. As that

they could not see the irrationality as numbers imbedded in rationals
numbers and brought the situation in asymmetric magnitudes, so now,
they removed to indefinitely procedures of paradoxes in geometry, away
from the numbers, in the figures (method of exhaustion, again Eudoxus).

The continuum .

The reset of the problem in numbers again, was during the 17th
century, with the development of calculus. The investigation of logical
bases of the methods of calculus led us to the concept called
'arithmetical continuum. ", and this was the solution of Zenons
paradoxes, in the 19nth century. The course began with Euler in the 18th
century, and

Bolzano , Cauchy

and others, settled in the late 19th

century, when the work of the triumvirate

Dedekind and Cantor

Weierstrass (,

method )

made possible the installation of all real numbers

as foundation of analysis.
Now the project is complete. According to this, all the basic
concepts of Analysis (limit, sequence, series, continuity, derivative etc)
would be developed in a strictly axiomatic constructed environment, a set
of numbers, the real numbers. But this set of numbers R, the continuum,
was quite

s t r a n g e

for our intuition, as infinity was its main

characteristic. Eventually a total of 13 axioms defines the set of real

numbers R. Since R has the properties of addition, multiplication and the
distributive property characterized as a field. Since R has the properties of
order, is characterized as an ordered field. Finally, since R satisfies the
principle of continuity

(13th axiom),

is characterized as complete

ordered field. R (sometimes called a linear continuum) is the numerical

model of the mathematical continuum, and our intuitive notions of space,
time ( movement), are adjusted by R. An equivalent geometric image is
represented by a straight line with the same structure as the set of real
numbers in the natural order of its points (axioms of orders), as the
mathematicians have shown that any two possible interpretations of a
complete ordered field must be isomorphic with each other. What is
more, the assertion of one-to-one correspondence between the points of a
line and the real numbers reveals

that those real numbers exist apart

from the number line . (the math page, An approach to Calculus).

The main and underlying properties of mathematical continuum (
R), are the density and continuity.

Principle of density: between any two real numbers (points of a

straight line) there is always another (actually infinitely many).
Principle of continuity: the real line (the real numbers) has no
gaps is continuous, not interrupted. The set of rational is not complete, but
it is dense. It

became complete after filling the gaps of the irrationals,

with Dedekind cuts or limits of Cauchys sequences.

The

paradoxes

of

continuum

that

eliminate

intuition

and

supervision are:
it is both unseparated and infinitely divisible.
The measure (such as length) of continuum does not result from
the aggregation of measures of points or the number of points.
Given a number (point) there is no next, since the distance
between distinct points is always positive and finite.
The total distance traveled in a succession of points is defined by
an infinite sum.
What about the intuition? Point in the continuum loses individuality,
so

its representation I not possible and disappears every intuitive

reference to it. Points are not inherent components of a line . A line is no

composed of an actual infinity of points.
"The point in continuum lacks the required backup on intuition. ...
Weyl
.. The points are not part of our intuition of continuum least not clearly
from the time continuum, as well as either a part of the space of
continuum ... Longo 1998 .. So in modern mathematics the term point
is abandoned, for the phrase "limit of a sequence" or for the word "cut."

The Pythagorean zeitgeist .

Point loses its clear and Pythagorean existence (point - bead), ie the
supervision is dissolved, there is no picture in mind for the real line, the
image of R,

but yet the situation is mathematically describable. The

infinite division of the continuum is

nothing like the finite division. We

consider the R infinitely divisible but we can not imagine an infinite

division. It's so dense, so it may happen that adding numbers indefinitely
to have as sum a finite number (the limit of convergent series).
This is the paradoxical dichotomy!
In this, the sum 1/2 + 1/4 + ...... 1 / 2n + ...... is an infinite sum
and Zeno manipulated it as finite. It is a geometric series as we saw
in Cauchy, (we are in the mathematics of infinity) we are not talking about
sum, but about limit, which trusts logic rather than intuition.
So Zenons succession

for AB = 1 is the (convergent) geometric

series 1/2 + 1/4 + ...... 1/2n + ...... converging to 1, for which we can write
1/2 + 1/4 + ...... 1 / 2n + ...... = 1 where the symbol of equality expresses
the equality in the world of measurements , through the history of the
calculus that Zeno ignored . This mobile so will arrive in B.
This just eluded Zeno, who imagined the infinite division
discretely, reaching on paradoxes. The reason of the paradox was that he
tried to combine the concept of infinity, and the Pythagorean notion of
discontinuity for the world. We know that the Pythagorean universe is a
copy of what we now call the set of natural numbers, the zeitgeist was
the notion that the universe consists of relationships between
discrete quantities.
The straight line for the Pythagoreans 'consisted' of beads (distinct
points) and time was a set of individual moments. If the discrete beads
(like rosary) were infinite, then mobile indeed will never reach to B. They
could not then understand that successive numbers of the positions of
Zenos mobile (points) could approach "arbitrarily close" as their order in
succession was growing, to condense so that the model with beads does
not

work,

becomes

invisible,

without

dimensions,

their

indefinite

succession a cloud, so gather 'arbitrarily close "to B (finite sum of infinite

terms-limit!), the case escapes from the supervision of distinctness, in

practice the mobile reaches (arbitrarily close) to position B.
This "arbitrarily close" today is not the result of intuition and
supervision, but of strict foundation based on the principle of continuity. Is
the limit of a sequence that is a point of continuum. In Zenos era,
sees the points

which

of R as does the classical mechanics the particles

(distinctness), it was impossible to establish a

theory of limits as the

notion of wave particle of wave mechanics.

The abolition of movement .

From this starting point we have the philosophical conclusions of
Zeno ie assuming indefinitely division of sizes, there was no... movement!
The successive points of the path never ends (infinite), and as he saw
them distinctly, make arrival at B impossible. He understood that the
discrete familiar Pythagorean succession does not occur when the number
of terms is infinite but how to describe it? So the infinite devision of sizes
does not apply ! Space and time was not infinitely divisible as numbers.
The result of the abolition of discrete and infinite succession (claims
Zeno) is finally the arrival of the mobile in B. (otherwise happens the
paradox not to reache B, method of reductio ad absurdum). So he
intuitively interpreted the principle of continuity. Repealed the indefinitely
division sizes, because he did not understand the 'mechanism' of that
infinite process means limit, and limit means arithmetical continuum.

The paradox of the arrow .

The next

Zeno's paradox (paradox of the arrow) has the same

interpretation, but in the continuum of time, where we can not speak of

indivisible and successive Pythagorean moments, with zero

duration .

The events are defined not as momentary but in the continuum of real
numbers (again no matter how small). The description of Zeno refers to
tackle the indefinitely division of time processes with starting point the
Pythagorean idea of the lack of continuity.
Zeno argues that for the existence of motion, an object must
change its position. It gives an example of an arrow in flight. He stated
that in each moment, the arrow is stationary, occupies an equal time in
each time, assuming that time is composed of indivisible moments and
even the length of each moment is zero. This is easily understood,
because if there is no time there is no traffic. But all of the time of arrows
motion is composed of moments, eventually so the arrow is motionless.
The paradox again rejoice when the continuum of moments of time,
that for Zeno was intuitive continuous of

indivisibles, is seen as the

arithmetical continuum. In Zenons continuum the instantaneous speed is

zero: U = s / t where t was the indivisible zero moment of time, no
time no motion, and in arithmetical continuum respectively was not zero,
was

ds
dt

s
t 0 t

lim =

the instantaneous velocity where the moment

of time is the limit of sequence, and this limit of the ratio ds/dt is the
derivative. Now we have the speed, ie the average speed in an
infinitesimal interval of time, that we talked about in Chapter of Leibniz. In
the world of calculus through the concept of derivate, the instantaneous
velocity is not zero, so the body moves.
The mathematical

continuum,

cleared up all of the many

paradoxes that appear in the course of the evolution of Calculus, in which

the paradoxes of Zeno was only the beginning.
George Mpantes

www.mpantes.gr

For this article I read

From the book Foundations and fundamentals concepts of
Mathematics of Howard Eves (ch. the postulational
approach to the real number system),
very good article by Ulin Nuha: Zeno's Paradoxes internet
, , .
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