> *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's roughly what I figured you did. It becomes a fairly arbitrary number, but, hey, since everyother number we're working with is arbitrary, why not? ;-}

> > 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 ;)

One does have to keep in m,ind the amount of time it takes to catch the rat, however. Agreed, once the rat is caught, it's all over (even with just one cat), but two cats may have an easier time catching it than one does.

I think, if nothing else, the one thing this discussion has proven is that we can and will talk about absolutely *anything* around here. Well, with the single exception (to poor Howard's constant frustration) of auto racing :-}...

Dar "Three blind mice / Three blind mice / See how they run / See how they run..." ien