
How many squares can you see? - ColinWright
http://www.puremango.co.uk/2012/08/how-many-squares-can-you-see/
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praptak
This reminds me of the "how many squares are there on a Go board" puzzle:
<http://senseis.xmp.net/?HowManySquaresOnAGoBoard>

Hint: This time it's _less_ than 18*18.

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DanBC
I'd be interested in other people's methodology and working out.

I got 40, but I'd be interested to see why other people discounted things that
I counted as squares. (Unless they just didn't see them.)

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jrajav
Pretty sure the biggest "gotcha" for people is squares consisting of multiple
smaller squares. Unless you've encountered problems like this before, it's not
intuitive to consider the 2x2 or 3x3 squares (and they might even miss the
4x4).

This iteration of the problem is more interesting because of the two inner
squares. It simultaneously makes you think you figured it out too early (I got
the inner squares AND the tinier squares they were made up of! That must have
been the trick!), and suggests the larger problem you might be missing.

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cabalamat
The correct answer, at least for me, is 18.

If the question had instead been "how many squares are in the image", the
answer would have been bigger.

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DavidBradbury
Well I certainly see one square right now.

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maeon3
Most people go through life on instinct, first impressions and use heuristics
to guide them, and the strategies invariably let them down. Computer
scientists, the minority, are obsessive compulsive with things like correct
answers to problems and procedures.

This is what makes many accomplished computer scientists seem a bit odd. We
use massive amounts of energy to pay attention to the tiniest details and
making sure an answer resonates with all known available information.

If you are not careful, paying attention to such remote details gets you to
miss the point of the exercise, to socialize and have fun. There is no prize
for getting the answer right.

What I gather from this is that 10% of people are abnormally obsessed with
being right about every statement, and 90% are not. If one who got the right
answer worked hard to correct the others, the others would say: "sheesh, what
a nerd, I didn't come on facebook to work!". I came to socialize.

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jrajav
I think you're reading too much into it - the point actually _is_ the puzzle.
Some people find it really fun to have their mind challenged, even in small
ways like this. It's the same idea as picking up a sudoku every day.

The reason that such a low percentage of people got this right is probably the
most obvious one: Only those who have a math background (so that they
encountered actual problems like this), or who have a natural impulse to be a
little OCD about obtaining and verifying the answer, will be likely to get it
right the first time. That doesn't mean that both they and those who got it
wrong can't have fun with it.

