Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Paradox Limericks



Paradox Limericks

There once was a poet from Crete
Who performed a remarkable feat
He announced to the wise
“Every Cretan tells lies”
Thus ensuring their logic’s defeat.

“What I’m telling you now isn’t true”;
Tell me, what’s a logician to do?
For it’s wrong and it’s right
And it’s black and it’s white
This confusion is making me blue.

Bertrand Russell once dolefully thought
“Is set N in itself? Is it not?
If it’s in, then it’s out;
If it’s out, then no doubt
it is in. What on Earth have I got?”

Mr. Goedel, with ill-disguised glee
One day wrote down a sentence named G.
It said, “G has no proof”
And if proof equals truth
It makes truth equal falsity. See?

Said Zeno to archer, “A quiz.
Is your arrow moving? It is
In its flight to the west
Every instant at rest
So when is it moving?” “Gee whiz!”

An electron confessed to the fact
That its nature was not too exact.
“I’m a particle, yes
That is true, more or less
But I frequently like to diffract.”

There was once an unfortunate ass
Who stopped between two heaps of grass
At the midpoint. It tried
But it couldn’t decide
Which was closer. It starved there, alas.

Or so Mr. Buridan said;
But don’t leave the donkey for dead;
For the actual mule
Was an ass, not a fool;
So it foraged at random instead.

Doc Strangelove once angrily fumed
“These peaceniks have falsely assumed!
For we’re safe if we’re gambling
And safer if scrambling
And safest if certainly doomed!”

Said a monk to a man named Joshu
“Is that dog really God?” He said “Mu”.
This answer is vexing
And highly perplexing
And that was the best he could do.


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