Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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  • Wreckrob8

    There would be a semantic meltdown.

  • zombieite

    So, the fact that this question has never made any sense to me indicates that I was right all along.

  • bjepson

    Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!

  • NI MEN HAO-DY TRAMPOLINA

    What was it, Thor’s hammer thrown at Dr. Manhattan… or something. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/the.zach.wagner Zach Wagner

    The answer is “They surrender”.

  • bluest_one

    I always thought it was “the unstoppable object stops and the immovable object moves”.

  • DevinC

    The video was a purely physical approach to the problem.  But it’s not just a physical question, it’s a logical one: what happens when two contradictory definitions are both true at the same time?

    Well, let’s see what happens when we assume two contradictory premisses, one the negation of the other:
    A & not A (contradiction!)
    So A,
    So A or B (where B can be anything at all, and ‘or’ is inclusive, i.e., if both A and B are true, then A or B is also true),
    But not A, 
    So B (because if one half of an ‘or’ is false, the other half must be true to make the ‘or’ true.)

    So the logical answer to the question is anything can happen. If you live in a universe where two absolute but contradictory definitions are both true, your universe is so screwed up that causality is completely out to lunch.

  • pjcamp

    What happens is minute physics takes 3 1/2 minutes.

    • gehringer

       …from your frame of reference.

  • Erik Osterholm

    If they are polite, they will shake hands and say, “Nice to meet you.”

  • justonpayne

    Remember that smart ass in high school who would go on semantic diatribes to prove how smart he was, but everyone knew he was missing the entire point?  

    This video.

    This stupid, stupid video.

    • Bruce Armstrong

      And what entire point is he missing exacty?

  • EichaelThe0ne

     I totally agree. It feels like the guy in this video was trying to be one of those fancy new hip vid bloggers who can memorize a script really well and emote as though it is the first time. Honestly, I lost track of what he was saying because IT WAS BORING. You know what I think about when I think about this phrase? Heath Ledger swinging upside down from a cable while doing some of the best acting ever acted.

    Not this. Not even close to this.

  • Derek Graf

    Ok king nerd