potato paradox
potato paradox noun: a calculation having a counterintuitive result: "Fred brings home 100 kg of potatoes, which consist of 99% water. He then leaves them outside overnight so that they consist of 98% water. What is their new weight?" The surprising answer is 50 kg.
Noun
potato paradox (plural potato paradoxes)
- A calculation having a counterintuitive result: "Fred brings home 100 kg of potatoes, which consist of 99% water. He then leaves them outside overnight so that they consist of 98% water. What is their new weight?" The surprising answer is 50 kg.
- The paradoxical nature of Giffen goods, where people consume more as the price rises.
Forms of potato paradox
| plural | potato paradoxes |
|---|
Origin of potato paradox
(economics): In reference to the 1845 Irish famine, when potatoes became expensive. It has been argued that poorer families, who habitually ate more potatoes, ended up having to consume even more of them, since the higher prices made it even harder to afford any other goods.
Questions about potato paradox
- What does potato paradox mean?
- Potato paradox means a calculation having a counterintuitive result: "Fred brings home 100 kg of potatoes, which consist of 99% water. He then leaves them outside overnight so that they consist of 98% water. What is their new weight?" The surprising answer is 50 kg.
- What part of speech is potato paradox?
- Potato paradox is a noun.
- What is the plural of potato paradox?
- The plural of potato paradox is potato paradoxes.
Words near potato paradox in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: potato paradox (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “potato paradox.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/potato_paradox. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.