Paradoxes
This section features a selection of classic paradoxes.
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Other Paradoxes not currently described at curiouser.co.uk
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- Abilene paradox
- Berry paradox: What is "The first number not nameable in under ten words"?
- Borel's paradox
- Braess' paradox
- Buridan's ass
- Burali-Forti paradox
- Cantor's paradox: is the set of all sets equal to or greater than its own power set?
- Control paradox
- Cosmic ray paradox
- Curry's paradox: "If I'm not mistaken, the world will end in a week."
- D'Alembert's paradox
- Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox
- Epicurian Paradox:
- Elevator paradox
- Fermi paradox: If there are many other sentient species in the Universe, then where are they? Shouldn't their presence be obvious?
- Gabriel's Horn or Torricelli's trumpet
- Galileo's paradox
- Gibbs paradox
- Grandfather paradox: You travel back in time and kill your grandfather before he meets your grandmother, resulting in your never being conceived.
- Giffen paradox: can increasing the price of bread make poor people eat more of it?
- GZK paradox: high-energy cosmic rays have been observed which seem to violate the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit which is a consequence of special relativity
- Hausdorff paradox
- Hedonism paradox
- Hempel's Ravens
- Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel
- Horse paradox
- Ideal evidence paradox:
- Jevon's paradox: In economics, increases in efficiency lead to even larger increases in demand.
- Kavka's toxin puzzle: Can one intend to drink the nondeadly toxin, if the intention is the only thing needed to get the reward?
- Loschmidt's paradox
- Lottery paradox
- Low birth weight paradox: low birth weight babies have a higher mortality rate, babies of smoking mothers have lower average birth weight, babies of smoking mothers have a higher mortality rate, but low birth weight babies of smoking mothers have a lower mortality rate than other low birth weight babies.
- Mere addition paradox: is a large population living barely tolerable lives better than a small happy population?
- Moon Illusion: Why does the moon appear larger at the horizon than at its zenith?
- Moore's paradox: "It's raining but I don't believe that it is."
- Mpemba paradox
- Newcomb's paradox: How do you play a game against an omniscient opponent?
- Nihilist paradox: if truth does not exist, the statement "truth does not exist" is a truth, thereby proving itself incorrect.
- Omnipotence paradox: Can an omnipotent being create a rock too heavy to lift? Can an irresistible force move an unmovable object?
- Predestination paradox: A man travels back in time and impregnates his great-great-grandmother. The result is a line of offspring and descendants, including the man's parent(s) and the man himself. Therefore, unless he makes the time-travel trip at all, he will never exist.
- Richard's paradox
- Skolem Paradox
- Simpson's paradox
- Sorites paraodox: If one keeps removing grains of sand from a heap, at what point does it cease to be a heap?
- St. Petersburg paradox: Can it be rational to refuse a small finite entry fee for a game with a possible infinite pay off?
- Twin paradox
- Theseus's Ship/George Washington's Axe
- Unexpected hanging paradox
- Zeno's paradoxes