Let’s say you have a bucket. And let’s say that bucket is floating along the surface of the ocean. The bucket is empty, but made from a material heavy enough to keep it upright without tipping over. The sea is calm and the skies are clear and so the bucket buoys along, rocking and bobbing with the gentle waves.

Now let’s say you put a penny in that bucket. A penny doesn’t have much weight to it, so the bucket floats along as before. Add another penny and still the bucket seems unaffected. However, if you keep adding pennies, no matter how slowly, the bucket will continue to press more heavily into the pressure of the sea below it. After enough pennies, so much of the bucket will be submerged that only a small lip remains above the surface of the water. A final penny tips the scales. Water spills over the edge. The bucket sinks.

It sinks, and sinks, and sinks, drifting down toward the blackness until it’s gone, the ocean that much higher for its descent.

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