Terrence Howard's 'Square Root of 2 is a Loop' is Not that Impressive

Terrence Howard is mystified by an idea that can be demonstrated here using elementary arithmetic and entry-level college algebra techniques. Here's how to turn his ideas into teachable moments.

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Disclaimer: Please don't take anything that Terrence Howard says with any seriousness. At best, it's satire; and at worst, it's a catastrophic failure of the American educational system. Terrence Howard's opinions are in no way based on fact.

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[jamesdelapena]

Update: This video is now officially over 1 year old on YouTube!!
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I keep finding PRO-Terrence Howard videos that use clips of this video, MISREPRESENTING my math, as if it were in SUPPORT of Terrence Howard. Please REPORT any of the TONS of AI-generated AI-narrated Terrence Howard videos on YouTube as "Misinformation", if you come across them, if they misrepresent my mathematics shown here, or if they contain other blatant lies.

I just had to report one video that promoted Terrence Howard's claims that he can cure AIDS and cancer with soundwaves, since that is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS MEDCIAL DISINFORMATION!!! People could die because of what Terrence Howard is saying. I also believe children should also not be exposed to disinformation like Mr. Howard's 1x1=2, especially if they are already struggling with mathematics. Terrence Howard is a real-life supervillain, and people may die if he keeps promoting his lies that he can cure AIDS and cancer.

Note: This video is NOT in support of Terrence Howard's outrageous claims or ridiculous math!! Terrence Howard is not a mathematician nor a scientist; he is a fraud. This video is to show that the result he is astonished by, and places so much importance on, is easy to demonstrate (prove) with elementary algebra, and that it holds no deep meaning, as he claims it does. This result does NOT "break" math, nor is it "unnatural", and indeed it makes perfect sense. He claims this loop "does not make math make sense". The math is sound. It's Mr. Howard that simply does not understand it. I am happy to see all the interesting mathematical discussions in the Comments section here! That is how Mr. Howard can ultimately advance mathematics: just keep being wrong, and let math students explore more and more ways to prove you wrong! That is Mr. Howard's small net positive on the mathematics community at large. Thanks for watching, all!

[phoenixsplash]

Bro if you take the year you were born and add your age, it'll be the current year

[crgrill]

I played the video of Howard doing his calculator demo and my 15 year old understood what it was doing right away. Not sure why he thinks this is so mystical. Great explanation.

[MikeBTek]

I agree with you James DeLaPena. I include below my investigation of this square root of two matter:
To see through Howards square root of 2 trick, you have to realize that you are just doing the following:
1) take any number
2) cube the number
3) square the number
4) divide the cube by the square
5) surprise! you have the original number again
Tricky Howard's original number is the square root of 2. He is not telling you that 2, is the SQUARE of the square root of 2. That is √2 x √2 = 2. So your are dividing the cube by the square to get the original number again and again. LOL. This works for any number. Examples:
number 3, cube 27, square 9, divide cube by square 3
number 4, cube 64, square 16, divide cube by square 4
number √3, cube 3√3, square 3, divide cube by square √3
number √2, cube 2√2, square 2, divide cube by square √2
Quite a funny little con, just saying "divide by 2" instead of saying divide by the square. He made the implications so elaborate and devastating, like science is broken, HaHa. Still waiting for an answer on if 1x1=2, then what does 2x1 equal? (That one is just a play on the Bible definition of "multiply" versus the mathematical definition of "multiply.") He got over heavy with that one too.

[davidhitchen]

It's not impressive at all. It's simple algebra : a^3/a^2 = a. You can do this with any positive number. Take the square root of pi and cube it, divide it by pI and you'll get back the square root of pi again. Come to think of it, it works for negative numbers too. i^3/i^2 = i

[reidflemingworldstoughestm]

Howard's mind is basically what mine was when I was 18, had next to zero experience with math, and baked out of my ever lovin' gourd. Emphasis on # 3.

[jumpre]

Wait till he finds out the transpose of a matrix has the same determinant

[ethiocam]

You can also take 3, cube root it, raise it to the power of four, and then divide by 3 to create a loop. There's nothing special about the square root of 2.

[withgrapepower]

Could also cube the square root of any number and divide by that number and you'll get the same result. I.e. ((√x)^3)/x)=(√x) or written a different way - 1)

[lasvegas.collective]

When will you be presenting this to Oxford?

[cosmosanto]

I mean, isn't it just x³/x²=x? And in this particular case x²=(√2)²=2 😅

[beentheredonethatunfortunately]

Also, around 5:30 mark, (0)2, or zero times 2, is not zero. Surely you've seen how 1x0 is 1. Supported by "what happens to the energy of 1 if the answer is 0?" So therefore 2x0 can't be 0. I've no idea what it is but we can't go around destroying the 2 because what happens to it's "energy"?

Also, in normal math, sqrt(X) cubed and divided by X is sqrt(X). I'm guessing he's concentrating on the sqrt aspect and the divide 2 is there because it matches what he's taking the square root of. So on that assumption, 3 would look equally impressive to him, along with 3458173. I'm probably safe on that because is anyone going to be able show that he isn't thinking this?

[robinseibel]

Wait until Howard hears about variables. That'll turn his world upside down.

[BlueLightningSky]

In grade school I knew a couple of math tricks where you'd pick from a set of numbers then follow some arithmetic instructions and then I'd be able to tell you what your number is. I showed it to a friend and he came back the next day having mapped out all the possibilities essentially writing down a proof. I wonder how Terrence would react if someone showed him one of those tricks.

[sheltonsummons]

The reason only the square root of 2 can be cubed and then divided by 2 to become the square root of 2 again is because 2 is the square root of 2 squared. Literally any number you cube and then divide by its square will “loop”. So no, nothing to his credit! (X^3)/(X^2) =X for all real numbers…

[mttlsa]

I feel like i'm doing math but the professor is the captain of a plane.

[MrRenosis]

The sqrt of 2 cubed thing to me, feels like the same sort of thing as “2 shouldn’t be prime because every other prime is an odd number”! It gives beginners pause for a second until you get a deeper understanding.

[alchemyiii]

From Video:
1. Cube
2. Divide by 2 (it would be better to say “Divide by itself” or “Divide by x”)

Terrance says it doesn’t happen for any other number, but that logic is incorrect; it happens for every # when you keep x constant. Step 2 in the video “Divide by 2” is actually saying “Divide by itself” because his example is using the # 2 and, after cubing, he’s dividing by that original #. So of course, it’s not going to work if you take the square root of 3 (for example), then cube it, then divide it by 2 because you just changed what x is in this example. But if you keep x constant:

x = 2
1 (take square root): Sq rt of 2 = 1.414213562373095
2 (cube that number): (Sq rt of 2) cubed = 2.82842712474619
3 (divide by x): 2.82842… / 2 = 1.4142135…, cubed 2.82842…, repeat, etc.; loop doesn’t stop


x = 3
Step 1 (take square root): Sq rt of 3 = 1.732050807568877
Step 2 (cube that number): (Sq rt of 3) cubed = 5.196152422706632
Step 3 (divide by x): 5.19615… / 3 = 1.73205…, cubed 5.19615…, repeat, etc.; loop doesn’t stop


x = 4
Step 1 (take square root): Sq rt of 4 = 2
Step 2 (cube that number): (Sq rt of 4) cubed = 8
Step 3 (divide by x): 8 / 4 = 2, cubed = 8, divide by 4 = 2, cubed = 8, repeat, etc.; loop doesn’t stop


x = 5, Works the same
x = 6, Works the same
etc.

[JDela]

After the Joe Rogan podcast i watched his video on this and i have no clue why he thinks it is so unique. I think his mind is not grasping the value of sqrt2 at times. In the video, he gets to a point where he puts up... "(sqrt2)^3 = sqrt2 + sqrt2 = 2.sqrt2".

He even makes this noise like he's going to laugh at it, and says something like "what in the world?"

I honestly think he is confused about the values and raising them to powers. In that equation, which is fine i guess, but the middle part is where he starts to get confused. Sqrt2 + Sqrt2 is the same thing as 2(sqrt2), but the point is 2 is a significantly LARGER value than sqrt2. It doubles the value of sqrt2 when multiplied by 2. Thats where his confusion comes up, he seems to think that cubing sqrt2 should produce a larger value than multiplying it by 2... but cubing it multiplies it by sqrt2, then multiplies the result by sqrt2. The fact is sqrt2 is closer to 1 than it is to 2, its a significantly smaller value. So there is literally nothing strange about this equation. It certainly doesnt suggest that anything is broken in math.

Even to get to that equation he does a bunch of unnecessary switcharoos with fractional powers, i guess just to show us that he can? It was absolutely unnecessary and added nothing at all only useless complexity.

Literally the only thing he is thing he is showing that is that (sqrtX)^3 / X = sqrtX, for any natural value of X. There is nothing special at all about dividing by 2 in his actions except that it is the number under the radical / surd.

[thomaskoller]

The thing you are missing is that the square of the square root of two equals 15, 179 on mondays, and -50 on all other days.
regards, T. Howard