Just last week, Stacey's nieces and nephews met up to go to the cinema to see the latest blockbuster.
From the clues below, can you determine the order in which they stood in the ticket queue?
Sam was in front of Sarah. Stuart was behind Sandra, and Sally. Sally was in front of Sharon, and Steve. Sabrina was behind Stuart, Simon, and Steve. Steve was in front of Sabrina, Simon, and Shane. Shane was behind Simon, Sharon, and Sabrina. Sandra was in front of Sarah. Simon was in front of Sam, Stuart, and Sandra. Sarah was in front of Sharon. Sabrina was in front of Sam, and Shane. Sarah was behind Sandra, Sally, and Sabrina. Stuart was in front of Sarah. Simon was behind Sally.
A million grains of sand is a heap. If we remove one grain of sand from this heap, we will still have a heap.
We can now keep repeating (2) until we only have a single grain of sand remaining.
Is this a heap? Clearly not. But what went wrong with our thinking?
This is called the Sorites paradox (soros being Greek for "heap") and is a classic paradox that has no real answer.
Both (1) and (2) are true, and we can indeed keep removing one grain of sand until we have a single grain remaining. If we remove one more grain, we're left with nothing, is this still a heap?
