Joseph Mazur - Zenos Paradox

Mazur spins a good yarnEntertaining and informative.

Publishers Weekly

Motion simply didnt make sense to the philosophers of ancient Greece; Zeno and his paradox seemed to show that it was impossible. In [ Zenos Paradox ], Joseph Mazur explains how more than two millennia of grapplingfrom Aristotle to Newton to Einstein and beyondhave left us with a deeper, yet stranger view of the universe than even Zeno could have imagined. Its a fascinating tale, and its well told.

Charles Seife, author, Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea
and Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information Is
Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes

[ Zenos Paradox ] is a wonderful book that combines the profound mathematical ideas of ancient Greece with science through the ages. It is an entertaining and informative romp through the mysteries of the universe and their explanation through ancient wisdom. Superb.

Amir Aczel, author, Fermats Last Theorem ,
The Mystery of the Aleph , and Entanglement

An enchantingand unsettlingexploration of mathematics, its human soul, and the world we live in. Read this and you will see everything differently.

William Cullerne Bown, editor, Research Fortnight and Research Europe

Vivid and witty in his evocation of historical period, precise but accessible in his recounting of scientific argument, Mazur has written a mathematical page-turner in which we keep hoping to find out how and why motion is possible. And how does it all turn out? Does Achilles ever catch up with the tortoise? Can the arrow in flight really move from one point of space-time to the next, when there is no next and space-time itself may be a transcendental can of worms wiggling about 1040 orders of magnitude below us?

Emily Grosholz, department of philosophy,
Pennsylvania State University

In a lively setting of history and anecdote, Joe Mazur, clearly a terrific teacher, sets out the crucial discoveries that progressively solved problems of motion without dissolving its enigmas. He has the art of making revolutions in thought and their mathematical underpinnings accessible without loss of depth. Anyone, from beginning amateur to longtime teacher, can read [ Zenos Paradox ] with pleasure and profit.

Eva Brann, St. Johns College, Annapolis

Using Zenos paradox, Mazur opens the door to a wonderful tour of the important notions in mathematics and physics related to motion, including planetary motion, calculus, the speed of light, relativity, and string theory. A fascinating look at what we often mistakenly take for granted.

Colin C. Adams, professor of mathematics,
Williams College

Joseph Mazur takes us on a fascinating tour with historys greatest scientists and their quest to understand the very structure of time and space. I would be hard-pressed to find a more readable account of these developments, which range from the ideas of Zeno, Archimedes, Aristotle, Newton, and many others, to the revolutionary insights of Einstein and relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory.

Ronald Graham, professor of information science,
University of California, San Diego