The Motion Paradox: The 2,500-Year Old Puzzle Behind All the Mysteries of Time and Space

By Joseph Mazur

Book Overview

The epic tale of an ancient, unsolved puzzle and how it relates to all scientific attempts to explain the basic structure of the universe At the dawn of science the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno formulated his paradox of motion, and amazingly, it is still on the cutting edge of all investigations into the fabric of reality. Zeno used logic to argue that motion is impossible, and at the heart of his maddening puzzle is the nature of space and time. Is space-time continuous or broken up like a string of beads? Over the past two millennia, many of our greatest minds--including Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and other current theoreticians--have been gripped by the mystery this puzzle represents. Joseph Mazur, acclaimed author of Euclid in the Rainforest , shows how historic breakthroughs in our understanding of motion shed light on Zeno's paradox. The orbits of the planets were explained, the laws of motion were revealed, the theory of relativity was discovered--but the basic structure of time and space remained elusive. In the tradition of Fermat's Enigma and Zero, The Motion Paradox is a lively history of this apparently simple puzzle whose solution--if indeed it can be solved--will reveal nothing less than the fundamental nature of reality.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0525949925
• ISBN13: 9780525949923
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Dutton Books
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

Metaphysics of Being

The motion paradox is one of the most important books that you could ever read. After 2500 years of scientific development we still can not understand or quantify an indivisible moment in time. Mathematics tells us that a finite set encloses an infinite series and this creates one of the greatest paradoxes ever conceived of by man. [...].

Fascinating and thought-provoking!

The Motion Paradox is a fascinating mix of science, math, and philosophy that draws the reader deeper and deeper into one of the most interesting puzzles of all time. Mazur's prose is joyfully thought-provoking and is not distracted by unnecessary mathematical equations. I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- Mazur's best to date!

A deeply satisfying -- and easy -- read

The Motion Paradox rewards the reader abundantly. The author manifests a scholar's deep appreciation for the social history of mathematics, a master teacher's grace and wit, a poet's reverence for words and their arrangements. The dust jacket blurbs are unusually apt, calling the book "wonderful," "entertaining and informative," "a fascinating tale, well told," "vivid and witty," "a wonderful tour of the important notions in mathematics and physics." I found all these judgments convincingly demonstrated over and over as I read the book. I've read with pleasure some books of the authors who wrote the blurbs, but unlike their books, The Motion Paradox is a book I'll probably read again. In a late chapter Mazur quotes Leopold Kronecker's one-liner: "God created the integers, the rest is the work of man," which made me recall Robert Musil's young Torless's declaration to his math teacher that mathematicians should not have invented imaginary numbers. Mazur is driving at quite another point, but I have no doubt that he was aware of young Torless and will find a way to sympathize with his bewilderment on an appropriate occasion. The book is full of observations that challenge the mind to postpone explorations of such implied byways. It will not disappoint.

The puzzle of motion

This is a book about the birth and history of scientific knowledge as we know it today. I didn't know a lot of the things I read about in this fascinating book. So that was the best part: I learn something new with every page. Everything is put in a historical context, and this gives the topic an unexpected freshness. Zeno's paradoxes are quite intriguing, especially because a couple of millennia later we still have trouble explaining them. This book is about the four "motion is impossible" paradoxes (The Dichotomy, Achilles, Flying arrow, and Stadium), and how they sparked controversy and ignited discoveries century after century. We learn about motion in the context of the astronomical genius of Galileo Galilei, continuity and calculus, Newton's law of gravity, light Einsteinian relativity, quantum mechanics and finally, string theory. It's almost impossible to believe that so much is covered in a 200 page book. Dr. Mazur seems to have a winning writing formula, seen before in " Euclid in the Rainforest". Besides the scientific facts, there is always a human element, and bits of trivia about the people that made these amazing discoveries. You could actually imagine the times and places, so vivid, humorous and absorbing are the descriptions of both people and places. Zeno was a "tall and attractive... citizen of Elea", Aristotle wore "conspicuously fanciful clothes", and rings on his fingers. Tycho Brahe had a handlebar mustache, and a `prosthetic copper nose bridge", after losing his real one in a duel. Gottingen is a "great European center of science", situated between "rolling mountains and famous for it lime tree, sausages, beer and influential mathematics". What is most fascinating about this book is that the concepts are explained with such clarity and focus that you only need to read to fully understand. Here you get a feel of what an artful teacher Joseph Mazur is. You almost wish you took math and physics with him. I just came across Marcus Chown's review in the New Scientist who said it best (New Scientist,2007, March, p50), "This is one of the most fascinating science books I have ever read . . . Joseph Mazur has succeeded in telling a fresh and untold story with clarity and style." I couldn't have said it better.

Mystifying the Nuts and Bolts

Professor Mazur does an expert job of giving the behind-the-scenes wrangling of conceptual philosophy which gave rise to applied science. What is the difference between time and motion exactly? If that question seems too abstract, this book proves the opposite. Most college graduates assume that Zeno's paradoxes of motion were solved by calculus with its continuous functions. Mazur puts the calculus at the heart of the book, from Descartes and Cavalieri to Galileo, Newton and last but not least Mazur's favorite: Gabrielle-Emilie de Breteuil. In fact, upon investigation, one finds many top scientists still studying and learning from the anomalies in infinite measurement. Regarding relativity Mazur states the wonder of absolute motion is that it "conspires with our measuring instruments to prevent any possibility of detection." As Mazur points out "we don't measure with infinitesmial instruments" and so the perceptual illusion of time continuity remains despite the reliance of science on discrete symbols. With attempts at a unification of quantum mechanics and relativity Zeno's paradoxes reemerge with full-force in the "Calabi-Yau manifold." Mazur writes that the original concept of dimension still holds but now means measuring more by abstract reason than by sight. Although each scientist featured by Mazur appears to have increasingly solved the paradox of motion in the end I think Zeno will be avenged and science will return to right back where it started. There seems to be a deadlocked struggle between discreteness (particle) and continuity (wave) in science and Mazur argues that indeed Nature "makes jumps" despite seeming continuous. But Mazur admits we are left with "splitting operations that can take place only in the mind."