Futility Closet An idler's miscellany of compendious amusements

As we might have expected, it’s a trick question. It appears at first that the race will end in a tie, as the two animals are covering ground at the same rate. The trouble occurs at the far end of the course. The cat, which covers 2 feet at a bound, can turn around neatly at the halfway point. The dog, which covers 3 feet, cannot: It will arrive at the 99-foot mark and then must make an additional leap to get past the same point.

“In all, the dog must make 68 leaps to go the distance. But it jumps only two-thirds as quickly as the cat, so that while the cat is making 100 leaps the dog cannot make quite 67.”