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Hello, the ancient Greek thinkers Zeno Obilir flourished in the 5th century BC.

His great innovation in philosophy was the paradox, a tool to highlight the unexpected consequences

of common sense ideas to question assumptions

and provoke new theories. For example, according to Zeno's paradoxes, motion is not possible.

An arrow in flight does not move. The fastest runner in

Homer, Achilles, could never catch up with the tortoosh in a race if he gave it a

head start. Philosophers from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell have tried to refute his ideas or explain them with varying success.

Innovations in mathematics, when Newton and Leibniz went some way to demonstrate flaws in

Juno's arguments, but the questions he raised

two and a half thousand years ago by time and space are as relevant as ever and have

re-emerged in quantum physics. With me to discuss the paradoxes of Zenu are Marcus Usotoi, professor of mathematics and

Simmonia professor for the public understanding of science at the University of Oxford, Barbara

Sattler lecture in philosophy at the University of St Andrews

and James Warren, reader in ancient philosophy at the University of Cambridge.

James Warren, what do we know about Zino?

Not a huge amount is unfortunately the arts and we know roughly when he was living and working he's

living as you said in the middle of the fifth century b c he came from earlier a town uh... on the west coast of southern

Italy and we know that he traveled a lot in Greece as people of that sort of class did and he wrote a work maybe just one work which included these paradoxes, of which we know about, it depends how you count

them, perhaps seven, eight, some to do with motion, some to do with motion some to do with plurality.

...