Bites: Short Tales of Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and The Royal Naptime Law

by TheAnonymousT

Bite 7: Paradox

“And for my next trick,” Luna announced with a dramatic swish of her midnight blue cape, adorned with stars, “I shall assemble one apple into two apples!”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “You mean take one apple, conjure a cloud of smoke, preform a spell to materialize a second apple and then remove the smoke? Don't do that, that's much too predictable. Besides--”

“--materializing goods out of thin air is forbidden because it'll crash the Equestrian Stock Market,” Luna droned on.

“Yes, exactly,” Celestia said with a sniff. Finally Luna had remembered some laws of common courtesy.

“But do not worry, dear sister! My trick shall involve none of this!” Luna swished her cape once more, causing her matching wizard's hat to topple to the ground. A bunny poked its head outside of the depths of the midnight blue hat, looked around the room and then quickly scampered off. Ruffled, Luna readjusted her cape and put her hat back on.

“Does it involve a bunny?” Celestia asked boredly.

“That was going to be my second-to-last trick,” Luna said matter of factly. “Anyway—I was about to assemble this apple--” Luna removed an apple from her prop bag and set it on the table “--into two apples!”

“Go on.” Celestia leaned forward. Without using any simple materialization spells, this could get very interesting.

Luna hovered the apple in the air with her magic as she carefully cut the apple into five pieces. “And now!” she exclaimed, “I shall assemble these five pieces into two apples!”

Sure enough, Celestia watched as the five pieces fit together...into two apples.

“Ta da!” Luna chanted.

“But—what—you--” Celestia stuttered. “You changed the pieces, didn't you? Made them bigger while I wasn't looking! Or you brought another apple! Or maybe the other apple isn't there, it's just an illusion! This doesn't make any sense! That...that's not scientifically possible! You're not scientifically possible!”

Luna put a hoof on her sister's mouth. “It really works, Sister. Try it out for yourself.”

Luna let Celestia take over her magical grip on the apples and watched calmly as Celestia broke the apples back apart into their five pieces...slowly turned them around, inspecting them...before fitting them back together into...one apple. Extremely confused at that point, Celestia broke apart the apple into the familiar five pieces and reassembled them into two apples.

“See?” Luna said, giggling.

“I—but—this—how does this even work?”

“A magician never reveals her secrets,” Luna said mysteriously. “But I will tell you that it wouldn't be possible without the Axiom of Choice.”

Author's Note:

This is a real thing: it's called the Banach Tarski Paradox.

Paradox: Part 2 coming soon to device with an internet connection near you!

Comments

[Xzrea]

Yeah, except the paradox requires you to be able to choose an nonmeasurable set, which is impossible. The simplest answer why is because of everything in this world consists of atoms, and they can be counted, and the set, as understandible from its name, cannot be measured in such way.
But hey, who cares? It's magic! And the fact that it's based on something very clever makes it even more hilarious!

[TheAnonymousT]

5552070

Yeah...its meaning is really exaggerated in pop science. But I really wanted it in there, and in a concrete form, soooo...

[Xzrea]

5552456
Sure.
BTW thanks for making it made of apple, not of concrete