#3049: Terrence Howard

Terrence Dashon Howard is an award-winning film and television actor, and probably famous enough that we don’t have to say much about that part. He is also an amateur-mathematician, and that’s where our interest picks up. (He has also claimed to have a PhD degree in chemical engineering from South Carolina State University (SCSU), an institution he never attended and which does not confer doctorates in chemical engineering).

 

According to Howard, he has developed language of logic called “Terryology” (oh, yes), which he ostensibly can use to prove the statement “1 × 1 = 2.” For, as Howard sees it, mathematicians have always been wrong about this (he actually blames the Annunaki for fooling everyone in order to halt the development of Mesopotamia). “How can it equal one?” asks Howard: “If one times one equals one that means that two is of no value because one times itself has no effect. One times one equals two because the square root of four is two, so what’s the square root of two? Should be one, but we’re told it’s two, and that cannot be.” You tell them, Terrence! He blames his leaving the Pratt Institute over disagreements with a professor regarding this hypothesis, which we admit doesn’t sound all that implausible. He also says that he dedicates up to 17 hours daily to creating sculptures from plastic fragments joined with copper wire, which he argues (well, says) “make up the motion of the universe” and which demonstrate his mathematical model by telling “the truth from within”. His “proof” that “1 × 1 = 2” was published in the journal on Twitter in 2017 but failed to make a lasting impact on the mathematical community.

 

He has later attempted to debunk the Pythagorean theorem, claimed he can “kill gravity” (he is, of course, an electric universe crank), asserted that he does not believe in the number zero, and claimed to remember the events of the day he was born. He has moreover sketched some universal theories of everything (aimed to replace physics) based on combining some presocratic-style nonsense with the New Age idea of sacred geometry, and wants to “rebuild the periodic table” partially on the grounds of his contention that carbon, silicon, cobalt, and hydrogen are of the same color, just “doubled in each octave”. And no, the fact that all of physics contradicts his ravings (to the extent that they are sufficiently coherent to be properly contradicted) doesn’t give him pause: “Everyone is wrong. The universe backs me up. You have all of these physicists saying something different but none of them have 97 patents. None of them have introduced a new form of flight.” He also, for good measure, claimed that a patent he owned at one point was the foundation of VR technology.

 

Some of Howard’s ideas are explained and evaluated here.

 

And yes, this is merely another celebrity who promotes nonsense. Celebrities are, after all, remarkably frequent purveyors of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, presumably because their exposed careers, higher levels of narcissism, and lifestyles “can easily become untethered to the experiences of average people”. But that’s no excuse for anything (and Howard is not a good person). Just don’t listen to them.

 

Diagnosis: Yes, it might seem a bit unfair to call someone out for their private pet stupidities when it’s not related to their primary profession (and probably wouldn’t affect their execution of their primary profession), but it was, after all, Howard himself who offered this brilliant illustration of stupidity to the public. We hope someone helps him with his own finances.