Can the Greek hero Achilles, running at 20 feet per second, ever catch a tortoise, starting 20

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Can the Greek hero Achilles, running at 20 feet per second, ever catch a tortoise, starting 20 feet ahead of Achilles and running at 10 feet per second? The Greek mathematician Zeno said no. When Achilles runs 20 feet, the tortoise will be 10 feet ahead. Then, when Achilles runs 10 feet, the tortoise will be 5 feet ahead. Achilles will keep cutting the distance in half but will never catch the tortoise. The table shows Zeno's reasoning. In the table, both the distances and the times required to achieve them form infinite geometric series. Using the table, show that both series have finite sums. What do these sums represent?

Distance (in feet)..............................Time (in second)

20..................................................1

15..................................................0.5

5...................................................0.25

2.5................................................0.125

1.25...............................................0.0625

0.625.............................................0.03125

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