Xeno Meets Planck
Most recent answer: 06/04/2013
- Jason e Johnson (age 33)
United States
Most physicists don't really think of Xeno's argument as being a paradox. So you can divide up a length into an infinite number of parts- so what? The length doesn't change. You can divide up the time it takes to travel that length into an infinite number of parts. That doesn't change the time either.
Anyway, let's say that for some reason, Xeno-related or not, one worries about what happens when things are divided down to a Planck length. We actually don't know what happens on that scale. Maybe the string theorists will figure it out.
One thing we don't think is that "it approximates the distance an electron travels during a quantum leap". Quantum leaps aren't actual processes in modern quantum mechanics; they're just words left from Bohr's semi-quantum model. Back in that model, the distances involved in the alleged leaps were far bigger than a Planck length.
Mike W.
(published on 06/04/2013)