The Bermuda Triangle. Earth. Space. Life. Afterlife. The unknown and eternally questioned are not limited to aspects of science, often the greatest of paradoxes are leveled at us on a simple plane, during everyday life.
Redditor u/Rraptor1012 was wondering what wonders and conundrums people are enamored with by asking.... What is your favorite paradox?Where is there space?
texas am college GIF by Texas A&M UniversityGiphy"I don't like that place - no one goes there anymore because it's always too crowded."
into the water....
Buridan's bridge due to the fact there is an obvious answer for those unfamiliar, it goes as such:
Socrates wants to cross a river and comes to a bridge guarded by Plato. The two speak as follows:
Plato: "Socrates, if in the first proposition which you utter, you speak the truth, I will permit you to cross. But surely, if you speak falsely, I shall throw you into the water."
Socrates: "You will throw me into the water."
Assuming it's a bridge near water and not that high, I would throw him into the water, fish him out, then let him pass. He'd be shivering on the way and I would say as he passes "THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING A SMART-A**"
The Matthews....
My mom chose my first name because she thought it would be a name you didn't see much. To be fair back in the early 80's you'd be right about that. But then it turned out to be the damn dark horse out of nowhere to become one of the most popular names that year.
And for a long time after. Hell, in one of my elementary school classes there were five Matthews. There were only 20 kids in the damn class. Literally a quarter of the class was named Matthew. Great job picking a less popular name, mom.
Gotta Work....
steve brule GIFGiphyYou need job experience to get a job, but to have the experience you must get a job.
I feel like this is how unpaid internships became so popular. You want a job in this field but we won't give you one unless you have experience, so do this work for free. Then maybe we'll consider paying you.
Time Warped....
Ocarina of Time bootstrap paradox.
As a child you meet a happy man in a windmill.
Time travel so you are an adult you meet the same man who is angered by a child who played a song that summoned a storm that caused the windmill to drain a nearby well.
He teaches you the song.
Travel back in time and you play the song at the windmill, causing the above events.
Where did the song come from? Where did the cycle begin?
Prevention
The Pogo Paradox. Where an event is caused by the very attempts to prevent it.
Edit: I'm not sure if this is an official name. I heard it on Star Trek: Voyager.
Edit 2: No this is not the Streisand Effect. That defines a situation where people want to suppress knowledge about some information but that effort causes the information to become more widespread. This is not a paradox.
The Family Cycle....
The story of Cronos.
It is a prophecy that one of his children will betray him, so he swallows all of his children except one. Who betrays him because Cronos betrayed his children first.
If he didn't swallow his children, they maybe wouldn't have betrayed him.
So that is what it is called! As soon as I saw this i thought of Anakin trying to save Padme in Revenge of the Sith.
Duties....
battlestar galactica pilots GIFGiphyPilots can get out of combat duty if they are psychologically unfit, but anyone who tries to get out of combat duty proves he is sane.
The Stats....
Statistical paradoxes are cool. For example, Simpson's Paradox where a statistical trend is reversed when the population is partitioned into groups:
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was supported by 61% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans. However, both Southern and Northern Democrats were more likely to support the Act than their Republican colleagues.
- White murderers in Florida are more likely to receive the death penalty than African-Americans. However, African-Americans whose victims were white are more likely to be executed than whites, as are African-Americans whose victims were black.
- Median wages in the US rose by 1% between 2000 and 2013, yet wages of every educational subgroup (school dropouts, school graduates, college graduates and higher degrees) fell during the same period.
- The overall survival rates for third class passengers on the Titanic were higher than those for the crew, yet those for both men and women were lower.
- The batting averages of baseball player David Justice were higher than those of Derek Jeter in both 1995 and 1996, but not in the two years combined. huseddit
Every Second of Family
Valentines Day Love GIF by CBCGiphyThe paradox of being a parent: the days & nights are long & hard, yet the years fly by.
Yes 100% I hate how cliché it is, but it's just so true. Each day feels like 749574 hours (especially right now when everyone is home all the time) but it truly feels like my oldest was just born and it blows my mind that it was actually 13 years ago.
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People who've had bad encounters with someone they've never met shared their experiences when Redditor Jemuzu8304 asked:
"Whats the most f'ked up thing a complete stranger has done to you?"
Drivers and passengers recall their rude interactions.
The Prank
"One time I was in south Philly and a car pulled up with two guys in it. They called out to me asking for directions so I walked over. As I was explaining where to go the dude in the passenger seat spit in my face and they sped off."
– the_humbL_lion
Willing Victim
"You just reminded me of a similarly gross interaction:"
"Years ago after a doctor's appointment, I got into my car and turned it on, at which point a small child started leaning/sitting on the hood. His heavily pregnant mother stood by doing nothing, apparently distracted by her phone. I rolled down my window, and asked if she would mind getting her child off of my car, as I needed to leave, and was concerned he could get hurt."
"She asked if I had insurance. Confused, I answered '...yes?', to which she said 'Well I hope you DO hit him so I can get some MONEY!' She proceeded to lean in through my passenger window, and started spitting on me. The kid was no longer on my car, and I desperately wanted to get away from her, so I put my car in reverse. She then hurled her pregnant belly into my sideview mirror, and shrieked in such an exaggerated way, as if I had hit her."
"I eventually found a new doctor."
– TheHaydnPorter
Unwanted Car Wash
"Stopped at a red light one time. Someone from a building adjacent to the light threw a bag of ice and water on my car, from a few stories up. Dented the roof and shattered the windshield."
"Wasn't even a nice car, I was driving a Dodge neon sh*tbox."
– IAmPandaKerman
You never know the capabilities of strangers you encounter.
The Violent Thief
"I got held up at gun point 2 weeks ago in philly 10 feet from the door to my friends apartment. They stole both our watches. My watch was given to me by my dead uncle. https://imgur.com/a/V59aebW"
– xcpain93
Hit By A Hard Object
"Reminds me of something. Some a**hole tossed a lock, like the combination type out of a car at me and hit me in the knee. I had trouble walking correctly for damn near a month."
"I always thought if they'd have stopped at a light I'd have hurled that b*tch right back."
"Good thing they didn't. I wasn't in any condition for a fight."
– Ok_Relationship_705
Moving Targets
"I also have a drive-by experience but it was with a f'king paintball gun. My friend and I were in freshmen year, just walking to the park to play some ball and with no warning he suddenly recoils and shouts in pain. I had no clue what happened. He reaches at his back and when he turns around I see a bright red paint splat on his white shirt. I look up and see the car that just passed us turns around, pulls up next to us with the kid in the passenger seat hanging the gun out window saying 'Sorry bro, I’m just so surgical with this thing,' and speeds off. Pretty hilarious story in hindsight within our friend group now, but at the time we were pissed. Luckily we got their plates and the cops showed up at their house and they got in trouble. F'kers."
– zakxk
Wrong Target
"I was about 11 and me and some friends were standing on a small bridge over a lake. All of a sudden I was picked up and thrown over the railing into the lake below. I tried to grab onto anything I could as I fell and scrapped my arms up pretty good. I still have scars 30 years later. So I swim to the side and some older kid comes up to me and just say - sorry, I thought you were someone else."
– discostud1515
Attacks happen when you least expect it.
Random Attack
"Punched me, for no reason. I was standing. Waiting for the community bus. A stranger got out of the car and punched me. I filed the Police report but nothing happen."
– Hallo-Mapskollegen
Hitting The Elderly
"My grandmother was at the movies and a guy walking up the aisle punched her in the side of the head. He told the cops he was mad because he was on a bad blind date."
"Like...great excuse to wallop a 75-year-old woman minding her own business."
– BarracudaImpossible4
The Ferrari Guys
"Had a similar thing happen when I was in Downtown Los Angeles. I was crossing the street and just came up onto the sidewalk. Some dude in a Ferrari steps out of the car, walks up to me and tries to swing on me in broad daylight. I sidestepped this dude, and he then spun to try to hit me again, calling me a motherf**ker and not to dodge. I caught him with a nut shot with my foot and doubled him over."
"His buddy hops out of the car, and another of his buddies (I assume) gets up from the side of the sidewalk and both are yelling at me, and I'm like, 'ah, f'k, I'm not ready for this.'"
"These absolute legends who had been watching all this sh*t go down just appear out of nowhere and jump these guys for me. Like, six different people from out of the woodwork. Nutshot and Scrub (Ferrari guys) hop in the car and just take off, scraping the car and taking the right side view mirror off. Their (assumedly) other homeboy gets left behind, but he tries to stumblef'k his a** away after having taken a couple of hits to the head. One of the guys who helped me jogs up and punts this dude in the side right after he falls over, doubling him up. Meanwhile, everybody else is checking on me and making sure I'm good."
"Cops show up, detain us, figure out what's going on, let us go, and arrest homie that couldn't get away. Come to find out, these guys have been doing this for weeks, and the people who helped me were local residents who had been on the lookout for Nutshot. Arrested homie later squealed, and all the guys involved got a couple of years for aggravated assault."
– feronen
My bad interactions with strangers were all random but definitely premeditated assaults.
I was mugged twice in New York City while I was typically minding my own business.
Also, while I was in Barcelona, I had a team of youths pick-pocket me and run off with my wallet containing my passport and credit cards. Fortunately, the friend I was with saw what happened and ran off after them. She sucker-punched the young lady who had my wallet, causing her to drop it.
Be careful out there, folks!
"What is a fact or statistic that seems fake but is real?"
And You Thought Sharks Were Dangerous...
"Horses kill more people every year in Australia than all the other beasties combined."
"Everyone thinks it's the spiders and snakes that'll get you, but it's the horses you've really got to watch."- Gingerbread_Cat·
The Dangers Of Scientific Advancement
"It took us more time to go from bronze swords to iron swords than it did for us to go from iron swords to nuclear weapons."- IMJUSTABRIK
Frightening People For Generations!
"Sharks have existed longer than trees have."- Capital_Indication_4
Discovery Sharks GIF by Shark WeekGiphyThe Great Unknown
"I saw a scale model of the earth, moon and sun in a museum."
"The sun was about the size of a basketball, and the earth was on the opposite side of the room, the size of a small marble, I'd guess about 30 metres away."
"The moon was the size of a tiny pinhead, about 10cm away from the earth."
"On this scale, the nearest star to earth, Proxima Centauri, wouldn't be in the same building, or even in the same city."
"It would be 10,000km away."
"And that's just one star, the nearest one to us, in a galaxy containing billions of stars, which is just one of billions of galaxies."
"The scale of the universe really is mind bogglingly big."
"Far bigger than we can begin to comprehend."- Qabbalah
Zero Points To The Lost World For Authenticity...
"We live closer in time to Tyrannosaurus Rex than the T Rex did to the Stegosaurus."- reiveroftheborder
stegosaurus GIFGiphyFrom Bad To Worse?
"After the British made head protection mandatory in WW1, the amount of head wounds increased."
"It's due to they were no longer KIA, but 'only' a head wound."- WouldUKindlyDMBoobs
Sarah Palin Can Confirm...
"USA is only 2.4 miles from Russia."
"2 islands in the Bering Strait, the body of water in the Pacific Ocean that separates Alaska from Russia, are 2.4 miles from each other at the narrowest point; one island is owned by Russia, the other is owned by USA."- Qabbalah
But Where Did "Ginger" Come From?
"In English, the color orange was named after the fruit."
"Before that, orange was just considered a shade of red."
"That's why gingers are called redheads."- I_might_be_weasel
redhead wink GIF by KobieGiphyAt Least We Can Be Sure He Didn't Lie About It
"George Washington didn’t know dinosaurs existed."- Silver34
But What Did They Want To Do With Those Cobras?
"New Delhi hired people to hunt cobra snakes which led to people having Cobra Farms to earn money, then the government stopped the project which led the Cobra Farmers to release their snakes, causing twice as many snakes than they first started."- cathabit
The Truth Lies Between The Lines...
"Barcode scanners scan the white lines, not the black ones."- the_blast_radius
Scream Bar Code GIF by joelremygifGiphyBut Does It Make It Easier To Avoid?
"Wombat poo is cube shaped, to stop it rolling away."
Perception Can Be Dangerously Misleading
"The Oxford University in England existed centuries before the rise and fall of the Aztec civilization."- RefrigeratorStatus96
"Time Is The Longest Distance Between Two Places..."
"A million seconds is 12 days."
"A billion seconds is 31 years. "
"A trillion seconds is 31,688 years."
"People have a lot of trouble comprehending numbers that big."- sunbearimon
Loop Time GIF by PsyklonGiphyOne thing that makes science so remarkable is how difficult it can be to believe.
And yet, scientists have been working since the beginning of time to prove that facts are, indeed, facts.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.