An ant crawls along an infinitely stretching rubber band. Does it reach the end?
An ant starts at one end of a 1-km rubber band, crawling at 1 cm per second toward the far end. At the end of every second, the entire band instantly and uniformly stretches by another kilometer, carrying the ant backward along with it proportionally. Does the ant ever reach the far end?
Reveal the answer
Yes, eventually, even though the band stretches far faster than the ant can crawl. The fraction of the band's length the ant has covered keeps growing every second, forming a divergent harmonic-like series, so given enough time (an astronomically large but still finite amount), that fraction reaches 100%. The paradox shows a slow process can 'win' against overwhelming odds purely by never stopping.