Is Terrance Howard correct when he says 1×1=2?

By Michael Alan Prestwood

Author and Natural Philosopher

07 Jul 2024

Published 2 years ago.

Updated 2 weeks ago.

Speed: 1.00

Is Terrance Howard correct when he says 1×1=2?

Terrance Howard has asserted that 1 x 1 equals 2, arguing that traditional mathematics is fundamentally flawed. He believes that one times one should equal two because if one multiplied by itself equals one, then two would be of no value. He asserts that multiplication is about increasing the value of something, so 1 times 1 cannot equal 1, and 1 times 0, which equals 0, is wrong. According to him, you cannot multiply something and end up with nothing.

Terryology relies on his fame and errors in critical thinking to confuse people. Multiplication is about scaling, not just addition, and it accurately represents real-world situations. Imagine holding a bowl in front of a group. You ask, “How many of these do you have?” One person says, “I have 1.” That can be represented in math by 1×1=1, meaning they have one of the bowls you’re holding. Another says, “I have none,” which is represented by 1×0=0, indicating they have none of the bowls you’re holding. If you’re holding 3 bowls and ask, “How many sets of these do you have?” and someone says “two,” what they’re saying is that you have 3 bowls and they have twice that amount, or 6 bowls at home (3×2=6). Put simply, multiplication represents scaling quantities.

Here's the key idea. Confusing intuition about meaning with formal definitions leads to confident but incorrect conclusions.

Here is the core takeaway. Multiplying is factoring. When you have two of something, you have 2 x 1 of something, which equals two of that something. Period. When you have 10% of something, you have .1 x 1 of something, which is ten percent of something, that's less than the something you are carving up. Finally, when you have none of something, you have 0 x 1 of something, which is nothing of the thing.

That Philosophy FAQ,

was first published on TST 2 years ago.

By the way, the flashcard inspired by it is this.

Front: What mathematical rule states that multiplying by one leaves a value unchanged?

Back: Identity property

All this is part of the broader TST project.

These short pieces do the quiet work of verification, ensuring that ideas remain grounded in reliable scholarship rather than repetition or assumption.

Rather than chasing completeness, each piece aims for clarity at the time it is written.

The end!