Twitter users were presented with a math challenge on Monday when they were asked to count the number of triangles in an image.
Here is the picture, which was posted to Twitter Monday morning by journalist Jitesh Pillaai. Clearly, this is going to drive some people absolutely crazy.
First, it depends on how each person looks at the image. Pillaai never provides audiences with the "true" solution, so let's go with my answer: 20. Note: I fully acknowledge that I am probably wrong, but we need to start somewhere.
There is an obviously divided triangle, but that my not be the only factor one must consider. The text, which reads "How many triangles?" can be outlined by a right triangle. One could also presumably count the word "triangles" as part of the solution, too. So right off the bat, we can say there are three clear triangles.
But where it gets tricky for some involves the sub-triangles inside the large one. By my count, using basic geometry which I totally bombed in high school, there are 18. A couple of Twitter users who are probably smarter than me agree with this.
This one is a bit messy, but it gets the point across.
So, we have 18 triangles within and including the main shape, the word "triangle," and the text asking how many triangles there are, bringing the total to 20. Perhaps this is reaching, but the instructions are pretty nebulous, and technicalities are fun.
Twitter users were pretty well split on how to attack this existential crisis-inducing problem.
"The fact that people actually sat down with Pen & Paper to solve a random Twitter riddler, should be enough impetus for the government to better utilize this generation and create some jobs, before it goes complete rot!"
Fair enough. One person pointed out that in theory, you could divide each triangle into smaller and smaller triangles, leaving an infinite regress of unending three-sided shapes. But, since the triangle is divided for us, this is speculative at best. And mean.
"If you're dividing those four-sided shapes into triangles, then by that logic you can divide the triangles themselves into more triangles. So the cycle would really never end."
Others just gave up entirely. Some answers might make you question the future of the human race.
Seven? Really? How?
Not sure where nine comes from, either, unless they gave up halfway through. Yabba dabba stay in school.
Fifteen isn't a terrible guess, but no.
No idea how there could be 24, either.
So there we have it. It's either 18 or 20, as far as I'm concerned. Or something else entirely. The world may never know. This is why I studied music.
