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Richard's paradox

Richard's paradox proper noun: the paradox where, given the observation that certain English phrases unambiguously define real numbers while others do not, there is an infinitely long list of English phrases that unambiguously define real numbers, yet (using a similar technique to Cantor's diagonal argument) it is possible to generate another such phrase not in the list.

Proper noun

Richard's paradox

  1. The paradox where, given the observation that certain English phrases unambiguously define real numbers while others do not, there is an infinitely long list of English phrases that unambiguously define real numbers, yet (using a similar technique to Cantor's diagonal argument) it is possible to generate another such phrase not in the list.

Origin of Richard's paradox

First described by the French mathematician Jules Richard in 1905.

Questions about Richard's paradox

What does Richard's paradox mean?
Richard's paradox means the paradox where, given the observation that certain English phrases unambiguously define real numbers while others do not, there is an infinitely long list of English phrases that unambiguously define real numbers, yet (using a similar technique to Cantor's diagonal argument) it is possible to generate another such phrase not in the list.
What part of speech is Richard's paradox?
Richard's paradox is a proper noun.

Words near Richard's paradox in the dictionary

  1. Richard Roe
  2. Richard Roes
  3. Richard Snaries
  4. Richard Snary
  5. Richard's Castle
  6. Richard's paradox
  7. Richard's pipit
  8. Richard's pipits
  9. richardia
  10. richardias
  11. richardiid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Richard's 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.

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