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"Paradox" does not mean "contradiction", it means "appears to be a contradiction (at least at first glance) whether or not it actually is".

This result is highly unintuitive to humans, and is hence a paradox.




Newtons laws of motion would be paradoxes according to your definition. An educated modern person is very familiar with them, but they are highly unintuitive to the uninitiated - this why it took so long to invent them and why they were such a big deal.

There's a distinction I've made in another comment between appearing to be contradictory to reasonably-well established knowledge vs appearing to be contradictory to intuitions. I don't think the latter are paradoxes, and I think the case in question is one of these.


It is possible to fall (essentially) forever without hitting the ground. In fact, the ISS does exactly that.

In addition an object can be "in freefall" whilst travelling upwards. A ball thrown upwards begins "falling" the moment it leaves your hand.

(And this is not just an arbitrary definition of the word "fall" - if you are catapulted out of a slingshot, you feel weightless from the moment you leave the slingshot, not just when you begin to come back down)

These direct consequences of Newton's laws of motion, and are unintuitive to most modern people, even those who learned Newton's Laws in high-school science.

They are apparent contradictions, and hence I would classify them as paradoxes.




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