name something that has no opposite?

Question

my ap physics teacher claims there is nothing in the world that doesnt have an opposite and in 25 years of teaching and challenging kids to come up with something, but he has proven there is an opposite to all of their claims. can anyone think of something and give an explanation as to why it doesnt have an opposite.

Answer 1

a middle. What's the opposite of a middle?

Answer 2

Without first hearing the definition of "opposite" your teacher uses, or hearing examples he's used, it's difficult to select the proper argument. So he may pull semantics on you. However, here's some potential ideas:



Omnipotence - the opposite cannot exist. The very existence of anything means that has an effect, and is therefore a subset, not the opposite, of omnipotence. The only thing that can be opposite is something that has zero effect, in other words, is non-existant. But that's a paradox your teacher can't argue. (Except to argue that omnipotence doesn't exist, which is true, but the IDEA of omnipotence exists, and cannot be an opposite idea of omnipotence can not for the same reasoning.)



Stinky (no "pleasant" is not an opposite, it's just different) Tell him to provide a smell that is the opposite of "lemon", and you'll concede the argument!



Any word (Not what the word defines, but the word itself)



Any date - no, the BCE/AD eras are just arbitrary way points, and he can't go back before the beginning of time, because by definition, there is no date before the beginning of time.



A snowflake - make him prove otherwise)



Don't let him use the anti-matter argument, because he can't prove that there is an anti-matter opposite of the actual sample you select. Also, anti-matter does not cancel or oppose matter into oblivion when they meet, they convert to another form - energy.



An idea. There are only different ideas, not opposite ideas



Don't let him use zero or absence as an opposite. An opposite is generally defined as an opposing and cancelling condition, and zero opposes nothing. Which is also why vacuum is not the opposite of matter. Vacuum doesn't cancel matter, so is therefore not the opposite of matter.



Which is also why good has no opposite, only degrees of presence, if you define good as the absence of bad.

Answer 3

my answer: time

tltr;why time? because its a physics class so the teacher is most likely considering only scientifically valid things/ideas.Also seems like all of the prior answers won't work. The question says 'nothing in the world' so concepts like God are a no go. Some are concepts that result in a paradox that disprove their own definition like the answer 'omnipotence.' Some don't really answer the question at all because the opposite of x is not x, but all things that are not x are not the opposite of x.

Time is something that is important to physics,can be measured with science,and uses the traps in the teachers riddle to its advantage. There probably is an opposite force/result/unit etc of time. Science just hasn't discovered it yet. Or at least observed it to the pt of naming it. In order to counter your answer of time, the teacher would end up making the same mistakes. You could get a paradoxical answer which is an invalid response. You could also get a cop-out response like absence of time which really can't be proven. you could never say'that time i noticed the absence of time.' then again I could be wrong, but at least you get to waste time in ap physics.

know this is super old but if 5 yrs later this teacher is still asking students this question, i would love an update:)

Answer 4

a character.



As in, a character in a novel. There is no opposite to a character; there are characteristics of a novel which share and oppose some things, but there is no direct opposite of a 'character'



EX> Setting vs character. They both are described in similar ways, one describes the atmosphere, the other is a description of the internal, of the basic. Not an exact opposite. You should write what he says to your idea on here; it would be interesting.

Answer 5

I heard recently, and why I looked this up, that there is no opposite to God. Anyways, it got me thinking about it. And do not say devil, that would be more the opposite of an angel.

It appears the universe, omnipotence, are similar in this vein of thought.

Answer 6

'NOW' has no opposite as its part of a trinity, for example, the past and the future. Other examples are 'Neutral' where positive and negative ore the opposites. Now is always this exact moment and never deviates. A true Paradox

Answer 7

opposite has no opposite technically....its like... you can never have an opposite day because the opposite of opposite day is a regular day...and yet the opposite of an opposite normal day is opposite day.... its a never ending cycle of not really opposites.

Answer 8

a billion ******* things don't have opposites - far fewer occasions can one think of a thing that kind of truly does (or at least according to our sensibilities) have an opposite - your physics teacher can suck my balls - or he can do the opposite and blow me

Answer 9

whats the opposite of the universe? the universe is basically everything we know so how can we know the opposite if there is one

Answer 10

Willpower.

Answer 11

ask him what the opposite of an orange is.

Answer 12

Mankind.

Answer 13

Interesting thread!

Answer 14

I'm not completely convinced about this one

Answer 15

The word "not".



As in if someone said "I did grab this." and "I did not grab this."

The opposite of "not" is just not using a word in its place.

Answer 16

zero