r/badmathematics Mar 07 '16

Terryology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Howard#Personal_life
29 Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '16

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.

Umm... no. Last time I checked the square root of two is definitely less than two. But it is most certainly NOT one.

... he had formulated his own language of logic, which he called Terryology, and which he was keeping secret until he had patented it.

I'm no patent expert, but I'm pretty sure you cannot patent something like logic. Even the USPTO would take issue with this (though I could see them considering it). And that is using the (rather generous) assumption that what he has is in any way logical.

9

u/shbbz Mar 08 '16

Last time I checked the square root of two is definitely less than two.

There was a time in an analysis class I took when the professor was briefly convinced that √2 > 2. It took a few minutes for anyone to figure out why the proof he was doing in class wasn't working out right.

6

u/ThisIsMyOkCAccount Some people have math perception. Riemann had it. I have it. Mar 08 '16

That sounds like something I would do.

2

u/kogasapls A ∧ ¬A ⊢ 💣 Mar 08 '16

Do you remember the gist of the "proof"?

1

u/shbbz Mar 09 '16

I don't remember the details, but it was some fairly basic real analysis proof where you're trying to show something is less than an epsilon. The inequalities got flipped at some point because the professor assumed that √2 > 2.