On Twitter a couple of days ago, I saw a tweet suggesting that if you mark out a square on your floor, your cat will sit in it.

 

Since I happen to have a floor, a cat, and tape I thought I’d give it a go. You can see the result at the top of this post 🙂 Amazing right?

Well, no, not really. I marked out the square two days ago, and our cat Elliot only sat in the square today.

Given that:

  • our cat often sits on the floor
  • our cat often sits on different parts of said floor
  • that we have a limited amount of floor
  • I marked out the square in an area that he likes to sit
  • that we were paying attention to where on the floor our cat sat

… and a whole lot of other conditions, it actually isn’t as amazing as Twitter thinks. Also, my hunch is that people who do witness their cat sitting the square post this on Twitter more often than those who give up waiting for the cat to sit in the square.

Below is a little simulation based on our floor size and the square size we used, taking into account our cat’s disposition for lying down in places. It’s just a bit of fun, but the point is that with random moving and stopping within a fixed area, if you watch long enough the cat will sit in the square 🙂

PS The cat image is by Lucie Parker. And yes, the cat only has to partially in the square when it stops but I figured that was close enough 🙂