Neil Degrasse Tyson reflects on what prompted him to record a 17-minute video detailing the shortcomings of Terrence Howard’s lengthy math and physics treatise in a new interview with Shannon Sharpe.
Appearing on the Club Shay Shay podcast, as seen below, Tyson, naturally, was asked about the much-discussed 2024 moment, which saw him offering a thorough response to his then-recent mention by Howard in a Joe Rogan interview. At the time, Howard had likened Tyson’s notes on his treatise to an “attack,” while Tyson viewed his criticism as merely being a sign of respect and in line with how any such paper would be treated by his peers.
“He sends me this 30-page document titled ‘1 x 1 = 2,’ where he says all of math is wrong,” Tyson said of Howard, with whom he was first connected thanks, in part, to a Star Talk interview idea from his mother. At the time, however, Tyson wasn’t aware that Howard wanted the focus to be on his treatise, and not on the usual topics one might expect in a celebrity interview.
“He has a new math that we should use,” Tyson said of Howard’s ideas. “He thought that I wanted to give him a platform for this new idea that he had, rather than just talk about his geeky underbelly as a science enthusiast. So, a little bit is my fault, for not knowing that that’s what he was going to send my way.”
Tyson reiterated that he did indeed offer a line-by-line reaction to Howard’s paper, which he then shared with the Oscar-nominated actor. Later, to Tyson’s surprise, Howard suggested during his conversation with Rogan that the astrophysicist and writer had been “mean” to him about the paper.
“That’s not what I do,” Tyson told Sharpe this week when again disputing this account. “I’m not mean to people.”
At the urging of his producer at the time, Tyson, with some reluctance, went public with the aforementioned 17-minute video that made headlines back in 2024.
“I do this, it goes viral, and it ends up drawing more views than the original post,” he added, pointing to the video—seen in full here—as a sign that “my job is done here.”
