Pinocchio's Triangular Squares Poem by Paul Hartal

"You look very pensive and absorbed", said the Elephant.

"You are a good observer", quipped the Giraffe.

"So what is on your mind? " asked the Elephant.

"Well, I am trying to figure out whether Triangular Squares
exist or not, " sighed th Giraffe.

"That is an easy problem", said the Elephant. "I can help
you with that. Triangular Squares don't exist as physical
objects but they do subsist in the Realm of Imagination."

"In the Realm of Imagination? "

"Yes. In the Realm of Imagination", repeated
the Elephant."And that includes this poem itself."

"Fascinating", said the Giraffe. "Does Pinocchio live
there, too? "

"Pinocchio also subsists there", smiled the Elephant.
"And so do Hamlet and Ophelia."

"The way that I see this", said the Giraffe, "all these
characters and mental entities are floating across
the mind, or sink like blue submarines of afternoon
shadows in the deep ethereal ocean of neural events
of conscious percepts."

"Perhaps", said the Elephant. "But let us not forget
To point out that positioning two triangular cookies,
or other triangular objects, in opposite direction
can create a square.Furthermore, this whole thing
Of triangular squares, which are sort of visual irrationals,
are actually an intriguing mathematical problem."

"Oh, yes, mathematics" said the Giraffe.
"You know, I heard a rumor that Pythagoras long ago
arranged numbers, represented as dots, in triangular shapes.
Thus, numbers such as 3,5,10,15 and 21 form part
of the sequel of the so called triangular numbers.
Mathematicians, with their infinite poetic imagination
see even zero and one as triangular numbers.
Gauss was only 18 years old in 1796 when he discovered
that every counting number is the sum of 3 triangular
numbers, such as this example: 10= 1+3 + 6."

"Oh, well", sighed the Elephant. "Now "let me invoke
the Nobel laureate British mathematician and philosopher
Bertrand Russell who held that in mathematics 'we never know
what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying
is true'."