I was walking through the store looking for my wife’s face soap when the word Zeno jumped out at me. Philosophers will know why – Zeno is a famous Ancient Greek philosopher.
I snapped a picture of this acne treatment device (see photo on the left) because the irony was just too awesome.
Let me explain the irony. The is product designed to help young teenagers change their appearance, and it bears the name of an Ancient Greek philosopher who thought change is impossible. Zeno’s Paradox is an argument that there is no motion and can be extended generally to argue that there is no change at all.
To the makers of Zeno:
I can think of at least two arguments that Zeno might give for why your product will not work. Here’s the first argument. For the product to work it must move and come into contact with your face. But to move toward your face it must travel half the distance to your face. But to move half the distance to your face, it must move half of that half distance. But to move half of that half distance, it must move half of that half. You see then that to move to your face, the product must move an infinite number of distances, but that’s impossible – so your product cannot move. So your product cannot work.
Here’s the second argument. In order for your product to work it must cause pimples to shrink. But for any size the pimple shrinks to the pimple must first shrink to some size that is slightly larger. Therefore, in order to shrink to any size a pimple must first shrink to an infinite number of sizes that are slightly larger. But it can’t shrink an infinite number of times, so it can’t shrink. So your product cannot work.
Of course I don’t think Zeno’s arguments are sound. I just think it’s ironic that a product that specializes in changing facial appearance is named after a guy whose most famous contribution to philosophy was an interesting argument against the possibility of motion/change.
I used a line of thought similar to Zeno’s when organizing my locker in high school. There was always room for another, infinitely small, object and, in fact, room for an infinite number of them. I knew, then, that my locker was never “full” as others would have me believe.
I also used this with my car, which, like most two-doors, was not built to carry more than ten people.
This product is nothing else than a ripoff for young desperate women, the makers of zeno do not even have a medical background less to mention a knowledge of skin types.