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Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas

Thought experiments

Thought Experiments & What-Ifs

Famous thought experiments and anchored what-ifs rebuilt premise by premise, each premise checked against sources, the obvious version beside the checked one.

Illustration: a man carries old planks on his shoulder from a short oared boat on the shore toward a second boat of the same shape, half rebuilt on trestles.

Ship of Theseus: Plutarch's Version Had Only One Ship

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Illustration: Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas. Generated schematic illustration — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas holds rights in it.

Illustration: two men kneel on open ground on either side of a large stone ball and a small one, pulling tight the rope that ties the two stones together.

Galileo's Falling Bodies: The Argument That Needed No Tower

Picture credit

Illustration: Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas. Generated schematic illustration — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas holds rights in it.

Illustration: a cutaway of a rounded hill with one straight, level tunnel running through it, the earth above thickest at the middle; a man sits in a small open car with no engine at the left-hand mouth.

Gravity Train: Uniform Earth, Straight Tunnel, About 42 Min

Picture credit

Illustration: Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas. Generated schematic illustration — not a photograph or historical record. Reuse: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), to the extent Puzzles, Charts & Dilemmas holds rights in it.