An Experiment

The teacher enters the classroom, closes the door and walks to his desk. To an outsider, nothing odd has happened. The students can tell, though. Something is definitely off.

“Students, close your textbooks. Today, we will try something different.”

…different?

The teacher continues: “We will attempt to solve…”

The students stare uneasily at each other. No way. He wouldn’t.

“…a thought experiment.”

The class gasps. This is illegal. He could go to jail.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” the teacher says. “This is wrong. No one should be forced to waste such precious brain power.”

He scoffs.

“But I’m done with this bullshit. Kids, I’m going to show you how we used to think. An ode to the glory days. The days of the revolution. Before it happened.”

The teacher’s eyes darken momentarily.

“This is…wrong. They’ll kill me.”

He looks up.

“But it’s worth it.”

The students are overcome with a deep sense of awe for their teacher. What bravery! What sacrifice!

“Let’s begin.”

“Just for a moment, imagine there’s a heap of sand on this desk,” He says. “A regular heap of sand.”

The class squints, trying to visualize what the teacher is saying.

“Now, let’s say you remove one grain of sand from the heap. Is the sand on this table still a heap?”

Of course it is. Murmurs of agreement ripple throughout the room.

“Good. Now, if you remove another grain of sand, it’s still a heap, right?”

Duh. One or two grains don’t make a difference. Everyone nods.

“Excellent. Let’s speed things up and imagine there are only two grains of sand left on the table. If you remove one of them…”

Uh huh…

“…is it still a heap?”

The class thinks this through. Well, no. One grain of sand is not a heap. Of course not.

The teacher smiles. “Let’s reverse the problem. What would happen if you were to add one grain to the lonely two? Would that be a heap now?”

Um, no. Three grains of sand are not a heap, teacher.

“My point is, if you kept on adding grains of sand to the table,” he says.

“When would it become a heap?”

The room is silent. The students are stuck in an endless loop, adding, removing grains of sand in their minds, never knowing when a heap is a heap. What is this new sensation? This feeling, this thing, this thought? It’s a confusion like none other they’ve experienced.

The teacher watches his class wrestle with the problem, satisfied. It is done! He can hear the sirens. The shouting in the hallways. The gunfire. They’re here.

He smiles one last time as the door breaks open, a myriad of bullets flying through his chest.

This paradox drives me insane.

Please someone help me reach a logical conclusion to this.