Worst paradoxes ever

[Da_Rebel]

Similar to the thread about the worst sayings ever, I was just thinking about some of the worst paradoxes i have ever heard. For those of you who are reading this saying "eh?" a paradox is basically a contradiction: ie "Microsoft Works". Another semi-paradox I hate is "self-motivation".

I'm sure you can all think of others. Post them here please and get them off your chest.

I have loads more but can't think of them 'at this present moment in time' (lol), but don't worry, I will be back to annoy you with more :D

[Alan]

They aren't so much paradoxes as oxymorons but I get the drift.

Here's one - "The Labour Party is the party of the people".

[Alan]

But can I steal your thread to rant at people who seem to have problems with real paradoxes:

"What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force"

This is an example of the power and weakness of the English language. The English Language's ability to adapt, describe, and conceive of impossible scenarios (like the above) makes it one of the richest languages in the world for explaining strange and seemingly weird concepts - it is also a weakness for if there was such a thing as an immovable object then, by definition, there could be no such thing as an irrisistable force and vice versa.

Another classic is going back in time and killing your grandfather before he ever met your grandmother.

More arrant nonsense. If you could travel back in time you would find it impossible to kill your grandfather for obvious reasons. Just because we can conceive a scenario and express it in our language, doesn't make it at all possible.

After all, "clairvoyants" have lived off that knowledge for centuries!!

[Dead_One]

but surely, that is the meat of all paradoxes?
if it was easy they wouldnt be paradoxes?
so, schodiggers cat?

[iggy]

that damn cat :mad:

i cant work out whether its dead or alive :(

but i do know one thing; when i let it out, its going to be bloody furious ;)

[Herminator]

so what did come first? chicken or egg?

[iggy]

thats not so much a paradox, as aquestion of evolution.

take chicken as creature 0

now creature 0 -2 lays an egg, out hatches creature 0 -1
(talking millions of creatures probly, but this is simplified)
creature 0 -1 lays an egg, out pops modern day(ish) chicken

[Alan]

Schrödinger's cat isn't so much a paradox as it is a thought description for quantum mechanics. As the electron can only be described loosely as being in orbit round the nucleus because it's position cannot be obtained with any certainty (indeed it is probably in more than one place at the same time), Schrödinger's cat can be dead, alive, resurrected, or any other combination you take to think off. You only find out when you open the box!

Quantum Physics can postulate an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of you and me, or not. The expression "quantum bullet" comes from the following:

Place a researcher in a chamber, tied to a post. Point a rifle at him and fire. In an infinite number of universes and given that the bullet and its particles do not have a fixed position (so the theory goes), then in at least one of these infinite universes the bullet will pass right through the man without hitting him because at each precise moment when the bullet might have intersected with a cell, a blood vessel, muscle, etc., it was elsewhere...

'Course, what are the odds of your universe beng the one where this happens!

This quantum effect may turn out to be the reason for one or more "inexplicable events" in human history. (Though if it involves to large a mass - forget it,)

[iggy]

i still think the cats gonna be bloody furious

[Monkey Rob]

Schrodinger never published his Dog experiment though did he? Mainly because it is safe to assume a dog is so fricking stupid it would eat all the food, poisoned or not. May aswell leave it in the box and bury it right then