Zeno
is famous for his two paradoxes brought out in the fifth century B.C. The
paradoxes proclaim that motion is impossible -- whether you assume that
magnitude is infinitely divisible or made of a large number of atomic parts.
The Dichotomy - If a straight line segment is infinitely divisible, then motion is impossible, for in order to traverse the line segment it is necessary first to reach the midpoint, and to do this one must first reach the one-quarter point, and to do this one must first reach the one-eight point, and so on, ad infinitum. It follows that the motion can never even begin. The Arrow - If time is made up of indivisible atomic instants, then a moving arrow is always at rest, for at any instant the arrow is in a fixed position. Since this is true of every instant, it follows that the arrow never moves. *
