I was trying to understand the three-body problem when Terrence Howard entered the conversation, and honestly, that created an entirely different problem.
Wait. Terrence Howard? Lucious Lyon? Cookie’s ex-husband is arguing with mathematics now?
Yes, the actor who played the music mogul on Empire. And the part that sent me down this rabbit hole is that his argument includes the claim that one times one equals two.
I needed an explanation that did not require me to become a physicist before dinner.
What is Terrence Howard actually saying?
In his May 2024 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Howard discussed his unconventional ideas about mathematics, geometry, and physics. This is an older interview, not a scientific breakthrough announced this week.
According to the available interview transcript, around 39–41 minutes he questions why multiplying one by one gives one. His reasoning is that multiplication should make something bigger.
But multiplication does not always make a number bigger. One group containing one thing still contains one thing. Half of ten is five. Zero times ten is zero.
If you define a different operation, you can give it different rules. That does not make ordinary multiplication wrong.
This is where I stopped feeling like I needed a secret decoder ring. The starting argument is something we can actually check.
Joe Rogan’s microphone is not a scientific credential
I am not taking Joe Rogan’s interest in something as evidence that it is true. He is relevant here because Howard made these statements on his show.
The July 1, 2024 follow-up episode, featuring Howard and Eric Weinstein, describes Howard as an actor, musician, and researcher in logic and engineering.
That is the podcast’s description. It does not independently establish that his claims are correct.
You can put someone in front of a microphone for four hours. The equation still has to work when the microphone is off.
But what about the patents he talks about?
In that same 2024 interview, Howard points to what he says are 97 patents as evidence of his work. That is his assertion, not an independently verified count.
Whatever an invention filing establishes, it does not automatically establish an unrelated mathematical claim. An interesting idea for a device and a correct explanation of multiplication are different questions.
The arithmetic still has to stand on its own.
Neil deGrasse Tyson actually read his work
Tyson’s StarTalk response to Howard offers a more useful question than whether the whole thing sounds impressive.
In the available transcript of that response, Tyson says he read every line of Howard’s 36-page submission and added comments. He describes giving critical feedback as part of how scientists examine ideas.
This was personal scientific feedback. It was not a scientific journal accepting Howard’s submission.
The useful point is that criticism is part of checking an idea. Someone finding a mistake does not, by itself, mean they are suppressing a discovery.
And what the hell is the three-body problem?
It is the problem of figuring out how three objects move when each object’s gravity pulls on the other two. Every movement changes the pulls, which changes the next movements.
Some arrangements behave chaotically, making long-term prediction sensitive to tiny differences at the start. Special solutions also exist: three equal masses can follow a figure-eight orbit, whose existence mathematicians have proved. Richard Montgomery’s description of that work explains the example.
A striking geometric shape could be part of a real solution. The test is whether the motion follows the gravitational equations. Looking impressive is not enough.
I want the explanation to survive the confidence
An actor can learn science. A person outside academia can have a worthwhile idea. I am interested in what someone can demonstrate.
But when a familiar face starts talking about frequencies, geometry, and rewriting the universe, I want to understand what was actually established before I start applauding.
Lucious Lyon can have my attention. One times one is still one.
Featured image: archive photograph of Terrence Howard. U.S. Air Force/Master Sgt. Jack Braden, via Wikimedia Commons.
