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A criminal is sentenced to death. He is put in a cell and told that sometime in the next week (Monday through Friday) he will be removed from his cell and hanged. BUT, when the man comes to remove him from his cell, it will be a complete surprise to him.
Obviously the criminal gets no sleep that night, so he thinks about what was said to him. After a while, the criminal is very pleased because he reasons this:
If Thursday has passed, and he has not been hanged, then he knows he will be hanged on Friday. If this is true, then it wouldn't be much of a surprise. So he reasons that he will NOT be hanged on Friday.
He then reasons that if Wednesday has passed, and he now knows that he will not be hanged on Friday, then he will have to be hanged on Thursday. But this wouldn't be a surprise either!
The criminal then concludes that he will not be hanged ANYTIME in the next 5 days because it would never be a surprise, thus conflicting with what he has been told.
The criminal gleefully sits in his cell....Monday passes, nothing. Tuesday passes, nothing. Wednesday comes, and he is taken from his cell and hanged.
Because he was so sure of his reasoning, this comes as a complete surprise to him.
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The power of a paradox!