Eli5 why the coastline paradox is a paradox?
In: 1301
Imagine a drawing of a coastline as a dot to dot picture, where all the dots are really really close (almost touching) each dot representing a grain of sand. When you connect all the dots and measure the length of the line you get a distance.
Now imagine you zoom in and realise each dot is actually made up of smaller dots (atoms) so instead of a straight line through each dot it is jagged. This will increase the length of your line (the shortest distance between two points is a straight line)
Now imagine to your surprise that you zoom in even further and those atom dots are made up of even smaller dots (sub atomic particles) so your line gets even longer.
Some people are arguing that there is no final smallest dot so you can keep zooming in to make a longer line.
I don’t think they are correct but if they were you could zoom in forever getting a longer and longer line.
Paradox typically refers to a problem that cannot be solved. In this case, you cannot calculate the perimeter distance of a coastline because zoomed out to a degree, it’s is one distance, but as you keep zooming in, the coastline curves and bends and adds perimeter, all the way down to the boundaries of moving waves and grains of sand.
You can get an approximate answer but never an exact one.
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