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Richard Walker

A Puzzle - Catch the Cat

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This charming puzzle is new to me. Although it appears on quite a few websites, I only stumbled on it a couple of days back.

Cats like boxes, as we know. In the puzzle a rather naughty cat is hiding in one of five boxes, arranged in a row.


The cat challenges you to find it! The rules are:

  • each day you may look in just one box
  • each night the cat must move from its current box to an adjacent one.

So from box 1 the cat must go right; from box 5 left; and from other boxes it can go right or left.

The question is: can you catch this mischevious cat, however hard it tries to elude you? If so: how?

I don't know who first thought of this puzzle but there are lots of references in this article.

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