Professor Layton Wiki
Professor Layton Wiki
047 - On the Run048 - Cats and Mice049 - 1,000 Times

Cats and Mice is a puzzle in Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Puzzle

Five cats can catch five mice in five minutes.

With that in mind, how many cats does it take to catch 100 mice in 100 minutes?

Hints

Click a Tab to reveal the Hint.

Five cats can catch five mice in five minutes.
If there were 10 mice running around, how long would it take for those same five cats to catch them?

Remember, this puzzle isn't asking how much time it takes to catch 100 mice.
Read the problem again. The wording makes it easy to forget what you are really looking for.

Let's rethink this from the first step. Five cats can catch five mice in five minutes. So, in 10 minutes, they can catch 10 mice. In 20 minutes, they can catch 20 mice.
How many cats are doing the catching?


Solution

Incorrect

Too bad!

If five cats catch five mice in five minutes, it would seem to suggest that 100 mice will be caught by 100 cats in 100 minutes, but is that really the right answer?

Correct

Five cats.

Five cats can catch five mice in five minutes. If the mouse hunt continues another five minutes, you can expect a total of 10 mice to get caught. In other words, the same five cats catch 10 mice in 10 minutes, and 20 mice in 20 minutes. It's simply a matter of how long the five cats work.