How many squares actually ARE in this picture? Is this a trick question with no right answer? This is one of those popular pictures on sites like Facebook. I always see a huge variation of answers such as $8, 9, 16, 17, 24, 28, 30, 40, 41, 52,$ etc., yet I've never seen a definitive answer on any website.



I counted $16$ whole squares ($4$ going down on left side, $4$ going down on right side, $8$ small squares in the centre). With this method the answer could also be $17$ if you want to count the entire shape as one big square.

I can also see the answer being $24$ if you count the smaller squares separately, as if they were floating above the main grid instead of intersecting with it.

Is there a right answer, or is it possible that there is no 'right' answer and it just depends on your counting method?
Thanks to Ross Millikan for helping me to find the last squares. Here is an GIF animation (344 kb) showing 40 squares from biggest to smallest:
Taking the side of each small square as ' one ' ( excluding the two squares in the  middle ) ; the number of squares = 16 (1x1 squares)+9 (2x2 squares)+4(3x3 squares) +1(4x4 square) = 30 ................................The two square in the middle have small sqares , with each side having a value of 1/2 . So the total no. of squares of these two squares = 2x [4(1/2x1/2 squares)+1 (1x1 square)] =10 .......Thus the total number of squares , are 30+10 =40