paradox.

something interesting to read...I find it interesting anyway.


Paradox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition. Typically, either the statements in question do not really imply the contradiction, the puzzling result is not really a contradiction, or the premises themselves are not all really true or cannot all be true together.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox


Buttered cat paradox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The buttered cat paradox is a paradox based on the tongue-in-cheek combination of two bits of folk wisdom:

Cats always land on their feet.

Buttered toast always lands buttered side down.

The paradox arises when one considers what would happen if one attached a piece of buttered toast (butter side up) to the back of a cat, then dropped the cat from a large height.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttered_cat_paradox


Irresistible force paradox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Irresistible force paradox is a classic paradox formulated as follows:

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

Common responses to this paradox resort to logic and semantics.

Logic: if such a thing as an irresistible force exists, then no object is immovable, and vice versa. It is logically impossible to have these two entities (a force that cannot be resisted and an object that cannot be moved by any force) in the same universe.

Semantics: if there is such a thing as an irresistible force, then the phrase immovable object is meaningless in that context, and vice versa, and the issue amounts to the same thing as asking, e.g., for a triangle that has four sides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox


Missing dollar paradox
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The missing dollar paradox is a famous problem which plays with confusion and misdirection.

The Problem

Three ladies go to a restaurant for a meal. They receive a bill for $30. They each put $10 on the table, which the waiter collects and takes to the till. The cashier informs the waiter that the bill should only have been for $25 and returns $5 to the waiter in $1 coins. On the way back to the table the waiter realizes that he cannot divide the coins equally between the ladies. As they didn’t know the total of the revised bill, he dishonestly decides to put $2 in his own pocket and give each of the ladies $1.

Now that each lady has been given a dollar back, each of the ladies has paid $9. Three times 9 is 27. The waiter has $2 in his pocket. Two plus 27 is $29. The ladies originally handed over $30. Where is the missing dollar?

(think about it before going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_dollar_paradox for the answer!)


I think I'm easily distracted by Wikipedia...let's just say, I'm helping to introduce fun facts of the day...or not-so-fun facts sometimes. yup.

I wonder if all this copying and pasting from Wiki counts as plagiarism...

lesser and lesser days to the start of exams now...I think I need to speed up my rate of studying...too slow! or maybe a change of environment might help...

the weather reflects my mood now...

anyway. study, here I come again.