Develop a theory justifying the following:
If you put a half dozen rabbits in a pen and care for them suitably for a period of a few months, you will generally end up with more than a half dozen rabbits in the pen. If, however, you fail to feed them, then you will end up with no (live) rabbits in the pen. If they are all of one sex, and none of the rabbits is pregnant to start with, you will end up with no more than a half dozen rabbits no matter how long you wait.
If you put a couple of wolves with a half dozen rabbits in a pen overnight, then in the morning, you will have two wolves and no rabbits. If, however, the wolves are chained by a short chain at one end of the pen, you will probably have as many animals in the morning as you started with. A metal chain will work for this purpose; a rope is not reliable.
Contributed by Ernie Davis ( davise@cs.nyu.edu), New York University, U.S.A. (19th September 1997)