"Vukcevich-GiantSteps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vukcevich Ray)

lights, but at least one of them captured Kim's attention. She settled back and
stared up at the night sky.

"Well, suppose you want to move from here to, say, Mr. Wilson's Store." Gregory
pointed at the small grocery occupying the bottom floor of an otherwise gutted
building at the end of the block. "To do that surely you'll admit you'd have to
go through a point that is halfway between here and there. Say, that big pile of
steaming garbage in front of the gun shop. Where the dogs are?"

"Yeah. So?" The policeman said.

"Well, to get to the pile of steaming garbage, Officer, surely you can see you'd
first have to go through some point that is halfway between here and the
garbage, say that broken fire hydrant."

"Yeah, okay, first I walk to the fire hydrant, then I walk to the garbage, then
I walk to Wilson's store. So what's the problem?"

"But to get to the fire hydrant, you'd have to walk through a point that is
halfway between here and the fire hydrant. Right?"

"I suppose."

"But to get to that point, you'd have to walk to a point that's halfway between
those two points and to get to that point you'd have to walk to a point that was
halfway between those two points and so on and so on."

The policeman didn't look happy, and Gregory thought maybe he'd made a big
mistake talking about Zeno. What if paradoxes pissed off the police? Gregory
pushed on anyway. What else could he do? Just go silent?

"No matter how small the distance, Officer, you still have to first move through
the halfway point. So not only can you not move from here to Mr. Wilson's store,
you can't move away from here at all. And that's why we can't move along."

"I think maybe I'll honk you with my stick, Professor," the policeman said.

"But it wouldn't be a real bonk, would it, Officer?" Nancy asked. She reached
out and patted the policeman's knee. Nancy, tough as nails in the old days, a
deconstructor of Brontes and cooker of fiery curries, had nonetheless taken
instruction from the streets and could now do a respectable grandmother whenever
the occasion demanded.

"What do you mean, Nancy?" Gregory sounded nervous and he kept an eye on the
policeman's nightstick.

"Well," Nancy said, still smiling at the young policeman, "if motion is
impossible, yet we still perceive motion, it must mean that we are deceived.
What we see is an illusion. If the officer hits you with his stick, you'll only
think it hurts."