Thursday, April 24, 2008

Another Paradox

I found this in an article at everything2.com.

All adjectives may be divided into two types:
self-descriptive and non-self-descriptive.

Here are some self-descriptive adjectives:
English
short
polysyllabic

Here are some non-self-descriptive adjectives:

German
long
monosyllabic

So, to which type does the following adjective belong?

non-self-descriptive

If the word is really non-self-descriptive, then it applies to itself. But that would make it self-descriptive. And if it's self-descriptive, then it is describing itself as being non-self-descriptive.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Paradoxes

I love puzzles, brainteasers, logic riddles, and paradoxes.

Here's an interesting paradox. How many of the following five statements are false?

  1. Three of these five statements are false.
  2. 2 + 2 = 5
  3. 3 +1 = 4
  4. 4 x 2 = 8
  5. 6 - 1 = 4

Statements 2 and 5 are clearly false. But what about statement 1? If it's true, there are three false statements. But where is the 3rd false statement? If it's false, then there are three false statements, which makes it true, which brings the number of false statement back to two. But, if there are only two false statements, then statement 1 is also false...