Ah, The Scalene Triangle

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Part of a series on Mathematics. [View Related Entries]

About

"Ah, the Scalene Triangle" is an expression associated with a video in which the narrator seductively repeats the phrase "ahh the scalene triangle" while zooming in on an illustration of the geometric figure.

Origin

On September 8th, 2012, Tumblr user Drawing Guitarist^[1] posted a video in which the narrator repeats the phrase “Ah, the scalene triangle” with increasingly sexual overtones while zooming in on an illustration of a scalene triangle. Within 11 days, the post received over 35,000 notes. The narrator in the video was Tumblr user Laser Electric,^[8] which was later made public by Drawing Guitarist.^[9] On the following day, YouTuber CreatureCatsMeow13 reuploaded the video with the title “Ah, The Scalene Triangle” (shown below), which received over 61,000 views and 250 comments within 10 days.

Scalene Triangle

According to the online educational site Math Open Reference^[7], a scalene triangle is a triangle with no two sides of equal length.

They are unusual in that the are defined by what they are not. Most triangles drawn at random would be scalene. The interior angles of a scalene triangle are always all different. The converse of this is also true – If all three angles are different, then the triangle is scalene, and all the sides are different lengths.

Spread

On the same day, a Facebook^[2] page titled "Ahh yes the scalene triangle" was created. Also on September 8th, Soundcloud user Que777 uploaded an audio clip titled "Ah Yes, The Scalene Triangle", which featured chanting monk background music accompanied by a narrator repeating the phrase "Ah yes, the scalene triangle" (shown below).

On September 10th, eBay^[4] user reqiuem created an auction for a hand-made pinback button featuring the scalene triangle illustration (shown below, left). On September 12th, Yahoo Answers^[5] user Downworlder submitted the question "What's with the 'ah, the scalene triangle?", to which user Robin cited the YouTube upload of the scalene triangle video. On September 14th, Flickr^[6] user cmusoarch2016 uploaded an illustration of a triangle with the caption "Ah yes, the scalene triangle" (shown below, right). The meme has continued to spread on Tumblr^[3] under the tag "#scalene triangle."