A Variant on the Feline Josephus Problem

Abstract

In the Feline Josephus problem, soldiers stand in a circle, each having $\ell$ `lives'. Going around the circle, a life is taken from every $k$th soldier; soldiers with 0 lives remaining are removed from the circle. Finding the last surviving soldier proves to be an interesting and difficult problem, even in the case when $\ell=1$. In our variant of the Feline Josephus problem, we instead remove a life from $k$ consecutive soldiers, and skip 1 soldier. In certain cases, we find closed formulas for the surviving soldier and hint at a way of finding such solutions in other cases.