# Thompson's Lamp **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 3, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thompsons-lamp/955473 "2021-12-03T23:17:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 4
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2021, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thompsons-lamp/955473/4 "2021-12-03T23:19:27Z")
> [@Lack of Freewill doesn't mean lack of choice](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-freewill-doesnt-mean-lack-of-choice/954128/100): > > > [@Lack of Freewill doesn't mean lack of choice](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-freewill-doesnt-mean-lack-of-choice/954128/99): > > > > More to the point, the series that determines the state of the lamp after two seconds is 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + … The limit of this isn’t 0,5—it’s divergent, so it simply has no well-defined limit. > > Although I suppose that’s only true if the state change is instantaneous, which might be what you meant. If it’s not, then at some point, we’d reach a situation where state changes could no longer be completed before the next switch happens. ‘0,5’ might then be a sensible answer if the ramp-up and ramp-down are symmetrical, although they probably wouldn’t be. But really, this is unrelated to the point I was making, which was [ed. note: continued in [Lack of Freewill](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lack-of-freewill-doesnt-mean-lack-of-choice/954128/100) topic] ~originally posted by **Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit** --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thompsons-lamp/955473)._