News tagged with paradox
Time travel experiment demonstrates how to avoid the grandfather paradox (Update)
(PhysOrg.com) -- Among the many intriguing concepts in Einsteins relativity theories is the idea of closed timelike curves (CTCs), which are paths in spacetime that return to their starting points. As ...
Scientist proves Braess paradox 'disappears' under high traffic demands
(PhysOrg.com) -- In an urban area with a lot of traffic, adding a new road to distribute the traffic may seem like a sensible idea. But according to the Braess paradox, just the opposite occurs: a new route ...
Time travel theory avoids grandfather paradox
(PhysOrg.com) -- The possibility of going back in time only to kill your ancestors and prevent your own birth has posed a serious problem for potential time travelers, not even considering the technical details ...
Winning While Losing: New Strategy Solves 'Two-Envelope' Paradox
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from Australia have taken a step toward resolving a seemingly simple yet unsolved paradox known as the "two-envelope" problem. They’ve worked out a new strategy that can enable ...
In Twin Paradox Twist, the Accelerated Twin is Older
Just when you thought you were beginning to understand the twin paradox (maybe), scientists have found something new to ponder. In the original version of the famous thought experiment on time dilation, one ...
Over long haul, money doesn't buy happiness: 'Easterlin Paradox' revisited
A new collaborative paper by economist Richard Easterlin namesake of the "Easterlin Paradox" and founder of the field of happiness studies offers the broadest range of evidence to date demonstrating that a higher ...
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Dec 13, 2010 |
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The friendly way to catch the flu: 'Friendship paradox' may help predict spread of infectious disease
(PhysOrg.com) -- Your friends are probably more popular than you are. And this "friendship paradox" may help predict the spread of infectious disease.
Sep 15, 2010 |
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Quantum paradox directly observed -- a milestone in quantum mechanics
In quantum mechanics, a vanguard of physics where science often merges into philosophy, much of our understanding is based on conjecture and probabilities, but a group of researchers in Japan has moved one ...
Mar 04, 2009 |
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Physicists resolve a paradox of quantum theory
University of Toronto quantum physicists Jeff Lundeen and Aephraim Steinberg have shown that Hardy's paradox, a proposal that has confounded physicists for over a decade, can be confirmed and ultimately resolved, a task which ...
Jan 14, 2009 |
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The paradox of gift giving: More not better, says new study
Holiday shoppers, take note. Marketing and psychology researchers have found that in gift giving, bundling together an expensive "big" gift and a smaller "stocking stuffer" reduces the perceived value of the overall package ...
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Dec 12, 2011 |
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Nonterrestrial artifacts hard to pin down
(PhysOrg.com) -- Two Pioneer probes left our solar system carrying plaques about humankind, and two Voyager probes will soon join them to gather information about places far out in our galaxy. We can and will send more autonomous ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Nov 07, 2011 |
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One clock with two times: When quantum mechanics meets general relativity
The unification of quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity is one of the most exciting and still open questions in modern physics. General relativity, the joint theory of gravity, space and time ...
Oct 19, 2011 |
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New explanation postulated for Fermi paradox
(PhysOrg.com) -- Enrico Fermi, the famous Italian physicist, once asked the question; if intelligent life has come to exist many times in our galaxy, why is there no sign of it? Its a clearly valid point, when you consider ...
The Eerie Silence
Why have we not made contact with aliens after so many years searching the depths of space? The Eerie Silence, a new book by SETI researcher Paul Davies, provides a fresh and thoughtful look at this question.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Apr 15, 2010 |
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Researcher unravels one of geology's great mysteries
Danish researcher has solved one of the great mysteries of our geological past: Why the Earth's surface was not one big lump of ice four billion years ago when sun radiation was much weaker than today. Scientists have presumed ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 31, 2010 |
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Paradox
A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition. Typically, however, quoted paradoxical statements do not imply a real contradiction and the puzzling results can be rectified by demonstrating that one or more of the premises themselves are not really true, a play on words, faulty and/or cannot all be true together. But many paradoxes, such as Curry's paradox, do not yet have universally accepted resolutions. The word paradox is often used interchangeably with contradiction. Literary and other artistic uses of paradoxes imply no contradiction and may be used to describe situations that are ironic. Sometimes the term paradox is used for situations that are merely surprising. An example of a paradox is "This statement is false.", and is explained below.
The logician Willard V. O. Quine distinguishes:
Paradoxes in economics tend to be the veridical type, typically counterintuitive outcomes of economic theory, such as Simpson's paradox. In literature a paradox can be any contradictory or obviously untrue statement, which resolves itself upon later inspection.
For more information about Paradox, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.