The Irresistible force paradox, also the unstoppable force paradox, is a classic paradox formulated as "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?" This paradox is a form of the omnipotence paradox, which is a simple demonstration that challenges omnipotence: ("Can God create a stone so heavy it cannot be lifted, not even by God Himself?"). The immovable object and the irresistible force are both implicitly assumed to be indestructible, or else the question would have a trivial resolution ("it destroys it"). Furthermore, it is assumed that they are two separate entities, since an irresistible force is implicitly an immovable object, and vice versa. Another common answer is: "The former is consumed by the latter, with an immeasurable release of heat"
The apparent paradox arises because it rests on two premises—that there exist such things as irresistible forces and immovable objects—which cannot both be true at once. If there exists an irresistible force, it follows logically that there cannot be any such thing as an immovable object, and vice versa.
Read more about Irresistible Force Paradox: Origins
Famous quotes containing the words irresistible force, irresistible, force and/or paradox:
“When an irresistible force such as you meets an old immovable object like me.”
—Johnny Mercer (1909–1976)
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“A good aphorism is too hard for the teeth of time and is not eaten up by all the centuries, even though it serves as food for every age: hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which—like salt—is always prized, but which never loses its savor as salt does.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)