Zeno's Paradoxes (Archive Episode)

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has selected just six that capture the huge range and depth of the subjects he and his experts have tackled. In this third of his choices, we hear Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Greek philosophy. Their topic is Zeno of Elea, a pre-Socratic philosopher from c490-430 BC whose paradoxes were described by Bertrand Russell as "immeasurably subtle and profound." The best known argue against motion, such as that of an arrow in flight which is at a series of different points but moving at none of them, or that of Achilles who, despite being the faster runner, will never catch up with a tortoise with a head start. Aristotle and Aquinas engaged with these, as did Russell, yet it is still debatable whether Zeno's Paradoxes have been resolved. With Marcus du Sautoy Professor of Mathematics and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford Barbara Sattler Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and James Warren Reader in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.
0:13.3	But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?
0:19.2	I remember having this very sharp thought that what you do right now, this is it.
0:24.3	This defines your life.
0:26.0	I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.
0:28.4	I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.
0:33.9	Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.
0:37.0	Listen on BBC Sounds. And now to mark the end of
0:41.1	his 27 memorable years presenting in our time, we have Melvin Bragg to introduce the next
0:47.4	in our series of his most cherished episodes. If the title in our time works at all, it's to describe this long period on earth in which we humans have tried to make sense of and enjoy the world around us.
1:02.5	This is our time.
1:04.5	Who would have thought that Zeno, a Greek philosopher, two and a half thousand years ago, even before Socrates was devising thought
1:12.7	experiments that would still be inspiring cutting-edge scientists today. That's why we were
1:18.4	discussing paradoxes live at 9 a.m. back in 2016, and the audiences loved it. Hello, the ancient
1:26.1	Greek thinker Zeno of Ilya flourished in the 5th century BC.
1:30.4	His great innovation in philosophy was the paradox, a tool to highlight the unexpected
1:35.0	consequences of common-sense ideas, to question assumptions and provoke new theories.
1:40.3	For example, according to Zeno's paradoxes, motion is not possible. An arrow in flight
1:46.0	does not move. The fastest runner in Homer, Achilles, could never catch up with the Tortosh
1:51.0	in a race if he gave it a head start. Philosophers from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell have
1:56.8	tried to refute his ideas or explain them with varying success. Innovations in mathematics
	...

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