No cat that wears a heron suit is unsociable.
No cat without a tail will play with a gorilla.
Cats with whiskers always wear heron suits.
No sociable cat has blunt claws.
No cats have tails unless they have whiskers.
Therefore.
No cat with blunt claws will play with a gorilla.
Is the deduction logically correct?
Kindly send your answers …
Nalin Pithwa
Mathematics Hothouse 
3 Comments
No cat that does not have a tail will play with a gorilla but at the same time if a cat does not have a tail, it does not have whiskers and therefore doesn’t wear a heron suit and cats that wear a heron sit are sociable. Therefore as an inverse cats that don’t wear a heron suit are unsociable. Sociable cats have sharp claws there fore u sociable cats have blunt claws. Therfore we can conclude that no cats with blunt claws will play with a gorilla. Therefore the logic is true!
I agree with Pradeep Selva that the deduction is correct. However Prof Ian Stewart includes this puzzle word for word in his book Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities and gives the opposite answer, citing a counter example which he claims satisfies all the premises but leaves the conclusion false. This puzzles me as I think his example violates the fifth premise, but I can’t help feeling I must be missing something! His example is a cat who has blunt claws, plays with a gorilla, does not wear a heron suit, has a tail, has no whiskers, and is unsociable.
I should add that while I agree with Pradeep Selva that the deduction is correct I don’t agree with all the steps of his argument!