Ant On A Rubber Rope Paradox

Video Description

An ant is placed on one end of a rubber rope and he begins walking at about 5cm per second. As he’s walking, the rope gets stretched… and stretched… at a rate of 10cm per second. The rope is getting stretched faster and longer relative to the ant’s consistent walking pace. Can the ant ever get to the end of the rope? Is he caught in an endless, impossible trek in which the end keeps getting further and further away? This classic paradox has very real implications to how we understand our position in a rapidly-expanding universe. *********** LINKS ************* The Create Unknown Podcast: https://bit.ly/2TKVDdc What Is A Paradox?: https://youtu.be/kJzSzGbfc0k Ant On A Rubber Rope Discussion: https://bit.ly/2DYQ7it Harmonic Series Proof on Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/math/ap-calculus-bc/bc-series-new/bc-10-6/v/harmonic-series-divergent Harmonic Series Proofs http://scipp.ucsc.edu/~haber/archives/physics116A10/harmapa.pdf Harmonic Series Proof https://web.williams.edu/Mathematics/lg5/harmonic.pdf *********** Written by Matthew Tabor, Michael Stevens and Kevin Lieber Huge Thanks To Paula Lieber https://www.etsy.com/shop/Craftality Get Vsauce's favorite science and math toys delivered to your door! https://www.curiositybox.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/VsauceTwo Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VsauceTwo Hosted, Produced, And Edited by Kevin Lieber Instagram: http://instagram.com/kevlieber Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinlieber Website: http://kevinlieber.com Research And Writing by Matthew Tabor https://twitter.com/matthewktabor Special Thanks Michael Stevens https://www.youtube.com/user/Vsauce VFX By Eric Langlay https://www.youtube.com/c/ericlanglay Select Music By Jake Chudnow: http://www.youtube.com/user/JakeChudnow MY PODCAST -- THE CREATE UNKNOWN https://www.youtube.com/thecreateunknown