*snips for brevity*

>
> > With that aside, the idea of all the cats killing one rat at a time breaks down with numbers over 8.
>
> I understand what you're talking about, but how did you come up with eight?

well, the number would vary, of course, with the size of the object the cats were circling. However, since, when compared to an average-sized cat, the rat is very small, the cats will just about be touching noses when they're all on the same rat. After that, it's a simple matter of average body width. . picture a compass. . . you have a north cat, a NE cat, an east cat, a SE cat, a south cat, a SW cat, a west cat, and a NW cat. Any more cats than that and they'd have to crawl all over each other in order to get to the center, where the rat is.

>
> > That establishes the clear fact that only one cat is needed to kill each rat.
>
> Correct - only one cat is *needed* to kill each rat, but we knew that from the beginning. The question was, would multiple cats per rat be more efficient than a 1:1 ratio? As you said, it is a pretty wimpy cat that can't hold down a rat while it kills it, but if it makles the process faster for another cat or two to hold the rat down while the first kills it, then it might be more efficient that way.

Again, I was going based on my observations of the cat that killed the rat. . .it pounced, and the rat was dead. I can't imagine how it would be quicker to have to wait on a second cat to bite the rat after the pounce :)

>
> The trouble is, if we assign two cats per rat, then they may be able to kill the rat faster. Assume for the moment that they can. However, that means that only half the rats are killed in that amount of time (equal numbers of cats and rats, two cats attacking each rat, half the rats go free). If the amount of time saved by adding an additional cat to the killing process is greater than the amount of time it takes to kill the rat with two cats, then it is more efficient that way than with one cat per rat.

True, but as I showed above, two cats could not kill a rat as quickly as one cat could. . .it would be a case of too many cat cooks. erm. . yeah ;)

> Of course, this is all assuming that the cats don't fight over the kill. :-}


Which of course we all know they would because cats are mean and like to fight. This is why I'm scared of my girlfriend's cat. It's mean (even though she has it on prozac - no lie) and likes to fight me. And I always lose.