paradox

(noun)

A counter-intuitive conclusion or outcome.

Related Terms

Examples of paradox in the following topics:

  • Effects of Time Dilation: The Twin Paradox and the Decay of the Muon

    • The twin paradox is a thought experiment: one twin makes a journey into space and returns home to find that twin remained aged more.
    • Since there is no symmetry, it is not paradoxical if one twin is younger than the other.
    • Nevertheless twin paradox is useful as a demonstration that special relativity is self-consistent.
    • Spacetime diagram of the twin paradox.
    • Explain the twin paradox within the standard framework of special relativity

  • Public Choice: Median Voters and Inefficient Voting Outcomes

    • The Condorcet paradox is a voting paradox where collective preferences can be cyclical.
    • It is a paradox because the wishes of the majority can conflict with one another.
    • For example, the Condorcet paradox can be compared to the game rock/paper/scissors.
    • An example of a voting paradox can be seen in a simple voting scenario.
    • The Condorcet paradox is used to evaluate voting systems.

  • Sex Bias in Graduate Admissions

    • In this particular case, we can see an occurrence of Simpson's Paradox .
    • Simpson's Paradox is a paradox in which a trend that appears in different groups of data disappears when these groups are combined, and the reverse trend appears for the aggregate data.
    • An illustration of Simpson's Paradox.
    • For a full explanation of the figure, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox#Description
    • Illustrate how the phenomenon of confounding can be seen in practice via Simpson's Paradox.

  • The Paradox of the Chevalier De Méré

    • Another one of his problems has come to be called "De Méré's Paradox," and it is explained below.
    • This is a veridical paradox.

  • Ecological Fallacy

    • A striking ecological fallacy is Simpson's paradox, diagramed in .
    • Simpson's paradox refers to the fact, when comparing two populations divided in groups of different sizes, the average of some variable in the first population can be higher in every group and yet lower in the total population.
    • Simpson's paradox for continuous data: a positive trend appears for two separate groups (blue and red), a negative trend (black, dashed) appears when the data are combined.

  • The paradox of the public pledge

    • The paradox of "the other" is the paradox of the public pledge.
    • But to make sure this point is underlined, let us consider the "Paradox of pay", perhaps the most complexing of all to the business professional.

  • The Photoelectric Effect

    • In 1905, Albert Einstein solved this apparent paradox by describing light as composed of discrete quanta (now called photons), rather than continuous waves.
    • Explain how the photoelectric effect paradox was solved by Albert Einstein.

  • The paradox of pay

  • Applications of Geometric Series

    • Zeno's Paradoxes are a set of philosophical problems devised by an ancient Greek philosopher to support the doctrine that the truth is contrary to one's senses.
    • Simply stated, one of Zeno's paradoxes says: There is a point, A, that wants to move to another point, B.
    • We now know that his paradox is not true, as evidenced by the convergence of the geometric series with $\displaystyle{r = \frac{1}{2}}$.

  • Philosophical Implications

    • He produced a series of objections to the theory, the most famous of which has become known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox.
    • John Bell showed by Bell's theorem that this "EPR" paradox led to experimentally testable differences between quantum mechanics and local realistic theories.