Russell's Paradox on the Web

James K. Tauber (jtauber@jtauber.com)
Wed, 13 May 1998 01:40:47 +0800


It occurred to me a couple of days ago that Russell's Paradox can be
described quite nicely in terms of web pages and links. It seems easier to
conceptualize than sets containing themselves as members.

It would go something like this:

Imagine a web page paradox.html that has a link to every web page that
doesn't link to itself. Does paradox.html link to itself? If not, then it
should be included on the page in which case it does link to itself. If it
does link to itself, then it shouldn't be on the page in which case it
doesn't link to itself.

James

--
James Tauber / jtauber@jtauber.com
Perth, Western Australia
XML Pages: http://www.jtauber.com/xml/