Meow! October 29 is National Cat Day!

Oct 29, 2015

Feline aficionados rejoice—October 29 is National Cat Day! It’s an absolutely purrfect day for word problems, so put on your thinking caps and kitty ears right meow and celebrate with us!

Debora has 8 cats. Half of her cats have 6 whiskers each, and the other half have 10 whiskers each. How many total whiskers do Debora's cats have altogether?

Solution: Half of 8 is 4. Debora has 4 cats that have 6 whiskers and 4 cats that have 10 whiskers. 4 × 6 = 24 and 4 × 10 = 40. So her cats have 24 + 40 = 64 whiskers altogether.

Extra challenge: A cat jumped off the table and landed on the floor (on its feet, of course). Its trajectory can be modeled by the function f(t) = –t2 + 2t + 8, where t is the time (in seconds) since the cat jumped from the table. How long after the cat jumps will it touch the floor?

Solution: Since f(t) is the trajectory, we can find when the cat hits the ground when f(t) = 0. So, we have 0 = –t2 + 2t + 8.

Multiply by –1: 0 = t2 – 2t – 8

Factor: 0 = (t + 2)(t – 4)

Solve: t = –2 and t = 4

Since t = –2 does not make sense in the problem's context, the answer is t = 4. So it took 4 seconds for the cat to touch the floor.

Cats by the Numbers:

There are currently an estimated 85.8 million pet cats in the US (via statista.com)! Per Statistic Brain, there are 473 taste buds on a cat’s tongue (humans have about 10,000), and on average, they sleep about 16 hours a day (we’re a little jealous of that one). Hungry for more kitty facts? Animal Planet and Buzzfeed have you covered.

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