Solvitur ambulando

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Solvitur ambulando (pronounced 'sol-wi-"tur-"äm-bu-'län-dO) is a Latin term which means:

• it is solved by walking
• the problem is solved by a practical experiment

Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach contains a dialogue titled "Two-Part Invention" (which itself is inspired by Lewis Carroll's "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles"), where Achilles says this phrase to Tortoise in order to accentuate that he was indeed successful in overtaking Tortoise in their race to empirically test one of Zeno's paradoxes of motion.

The phrase is also cited in "Walking" by H.D. Thoreau, of course in the first meaning.

[edit] External links

• http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/solvitur+ambulando

[edit] References

• Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1999), Gödel, Escher, Bach, Basic Books, ISBN 0465026567 .
• Thoreau, H.D. (1861), Walking .