  Zeno's ancient paradox depicts a race between swift Achilles and a slow
tortoise with a head start. Zeno argued that Achilles could never overtake the
tortoise, as at each step Achilles arrived at the tortoise's former position,
the tortoise had already moved ahead. Though Zeno's premise is valid, his
conclusion that Achilles can "never" pass the tortoise relies on equating
infinite steps with an infinite amount of time. By modeling the sequence of
events in terms of a converging geometric series, this paper shows that such an
infinite number of events sum up to a finite distance traversed in finite time.
The paradox stems from confusion between an infinite number of events, which
can happen in a finite time interval, and an infinite amount of time. The
fallacy is clarified by recognizing that the infinite number of events can be
crammed into a finite time interval. At a given speed difference after a finite
amount of time, Achilles will have completed the infinite series of gaps at the
"catch-up time" and passed the tortoise. Hence this paradox of Achilles and the
tortoise can be resolved by simply adding "before the catch-up time" to the
concluding statement of "Achilles would never overtake the tortoise".

General Mathematics