Thread of Paradoxes: Make Your Head Explode!

[jobyts]

Birthday paradox is not at all a paradox. It's just a mathematical property.

 

[redargon]

A guy goes up to a punk on the street and says: "Hey, show me what punk is."
The punk walks over to a dustbin and kicks it into the street, "That's punk!"
So the guy goes up to another dustbin and kicks it into the street, "That's punk?"
To which the punk replies, "No, that's trendy."

 

[Andre]

A very interesting one is the Abilene paradox, where a group of people do things what none of them would have done individually.

I think there is a whole world more to that.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Some snakes eat other snakes. That may not be a paradox, but it should be.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I would have to fiddle around a bit to remember the correct equation, but if one considers the volume and surface area for what is essentially a conucopia - I think you take the surface formed by taking the revolution of the equation f(x) = 1/x,. about the x axis, where x goes from zero to positive infinity - one finds that the volume is finite but the surface area is infinite.

Hence, you could fill it but you could never paint it.

 

[Danger]

Banks charging penalty fees for bounced checks - clearly the person doesn't have enough money in the first place.

That is so sick that it isn't even funny to anyone who has experienced it. When I retired from my locksmith business, I left $70 in the bank account since that, the cell phone, and my PO box were the only evidence of the company's existence. Less than a year later, I got a bill from the bank saying that I was overdrawn by $100 and they wanted it right now. They'd sucked the whole $70, plus an extra $75, in service charges on a dormant account, then tried to charge me a $25 penalty for being overdrawn. I went in, told them to **** themselves, and closed the account. I also closed my personal one and moved to a Credit Union. (I should point out that a lot of the people at that bank were/are friendly acquaintances of mine. They thought that it stunk too, and didn't even try to pursue collection. It was the institution itself that was to blame, not the employees.)