math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
When you’re thinking about posting a new TOE or something that you think is exceptionally revolutionary, consider the index.
When you’re thinking about believing someone who has posted the aforementioned, consider the index.
Notables:
I’d say this doesn’t belong in the Natural Sciences forum, but unfortunately the forum is full of posts containing one or more (usually more) of these.
I have no problem with it. Thanks for contributing.
Oh come on. . . a little wild speculation never hurt anyone . . . as long as you realize that’s what it is.
That’s just it…these nutjobs don’t realize it. I can name many on the site.
I checked myself out on this a while back:
A -5 point starting credit.
OK, I’m on -5.
1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
I don’t make false statements. Sometimes people say “that’s wrong”, but they can’t back it up.
2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
Not me.
3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
Definitely not me. My logic bites like a crocodile and it doesn’t let go.
5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
Nope. I have made mistakes, and am willing to take it on the chin.
5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
Nope, I’m very keen on real experiments and empirical evidence and observation.
5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).
OK, I’ll take 5 points for RELATIVITY+, so now I’m on zero.
5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
No chance.
10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
Quantum mechanics isn’t misguided. The maths works. Some of the interpretations are however total pseudoscience. Or should I say: crackpot!
10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
Nope.
10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.
Nay lad.
10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
Uh oh. I’m fairly public, but I have done this. Now I’m on 10 points.
10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.
No way. I know that nothing is ever perfect.
10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.
I am careful to avoid this sort of thing. I’ve come across it and thought “yeuw!”
[i]10 points for each statement along the lines of "I’m not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations[/i]".
Go on then, I’ve tried to interest mathematicians because I don’t have time myself to do everything myself, and besides, I don’t want to do them out of a job. Can’t have them flipping burgers for a living! Now I’m on 20 points.
10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
Since I’ve said string theory isn’t even a theory, let’s have another ten points. I’ll wear that badge with pride. Running total: 30 points.
10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".
Oh definitely. Oh yes oh yes oh yes. 40 points.
10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
Cough, much to my shame I have to give myself ten points for comparison. 50 points in total.
10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".
Oh yeah, baby. 60 points. This is fun.
20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index, e.g. saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.
I have half a mind to do this. The guy is an airhead pseud who knows nothing. Hey John, you can’t quantize gravity. Ask Smolin why not. “Higher categories”, LOL!
20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.
In an unwise moment I did allow myself to be goaded and say the wrong thing here. Or so my Swedish friends tell me!
20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
You know he spent his latter years working on light? Smart guy, Newton. Even greater than people realise. But I’ve never compared myself to the guy.
20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
Geddoutofit. Time travel is science fiction. So are parallel worlds. Unseen dimensions are a myth, so are branes.
20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
Don’t think so.
20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
Nope.
20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
Naw.
30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)Not me.
30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
Definitely. The concept of field is no longer appropriate. 110 points.
30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
Aw FFS, that’s ridiculous.
30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.Now that is just a little bit nasty.
40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
Tsk. WTF is this guy on?
40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
I’ll take the 40 points. Running total 150 points. This happens all the time. Physics is far more of a competitive antheap than people think, and of course “science advances one death at a time”. Take a look at page 53 of Graham Farmelo’s book “The Strangest Man” and you can see how the guys at DAMTP were still sneering at Einstein in 1923: amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/05712 … eader-page
40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case…
Nope. But I have mentioned Bruno. Does that count?
40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
This is my nightmare scenario. You don’t know how bad it’s going to be. I’ll take the 40 points. That’s a running total of 190 points.
50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.
Not me.
OK, 190 points, where does that leave me? Leading edge? Thinking outside the box? Maverick? Uh, there’s no readout. So I don’t know. Duh. And that makes the whole thing a typical piece of sneering intellectual arrogance, and a total waste of time. Which is pretty much all we ever get from this dilettante mathematician pretending to be a physicist and just getting in the way. This is typical of the nonsense the guy has on his website: math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/R … light.html.
[i]“Einstein went on to discover a more general theory of relativity which explained gravity in terms of curved spacetime, and he talked about the speed of light changing in this new theory. In the 1920 book “Relativity: the special and general theory” he wrote: . . . according to the general theory of relativity, the law of the constancy of the velocity of light in vacuo, which constitutes one of the two fundamental assumptions in the special theory of relativity [. . .] cannot claim any unlimited validity. A curvature of rays of light can only take place when the velocity of propagation of light varies with position. Since Einstein talks of velocity (a vector quantity: speed with direction) rather than speed alone, it is not clear that he meant the speed will change, but the reference to special relativity suggests that he did mean so. This interpretation is perfectly valid and makes good physical sense, but a more modern interpretation is that the speed of light is constant in general relativity…”
“Finally, we come to the conclusion that the speed of light is not only observed to be constant; in the light of well tested theories of physics, it does not even make any sense to say that it varies”.[/i]
I’ve just discovered a new entry on the index after skimming that last post…
You should read ‘Fads and Fallacies’ by Martin Gardner. It was a book written in the 50s about crank theories that existed then, a classic I believe, and it lists quite a number of cranks and their theories. The most common trait between all cranks it seems is the illusion of grandeur and the dramatic ‘paradigm shift’ they think their ideas will bring to make all contemporary scientists bow down to their intellectual prowess. It’s available for download online, and I assume in many libraries. Have a read through it, it’ll give you some funny new theories to compare the new ones to (i.e. flat earth, convex earth).
Anthem, I have a question for you. Does the crackpot index apply to philosophers who question the conclusions reached by the accumulation of a collection of scientific facts? Let’s face it - there are two components to what we call science. There’s the strict cause-effect determinations through experiments and the scientific method, and then there’s the “modeling” of these collected relationships into a coherent explanation. If someone argues that the anomolies present in every model cause the model to be disregarded in favor of a new model which they view to more completely account for the cause-effect relationships, or if they simply caution where certain models fail so that we shouldn’t be too “puffed up” about what we really know, do they score positive points on the Crackpot Index? I would think not if they can meaningfully point to holes in a model or use scientific facts in their justification. They may be incorrect, but not a crackpot, right?
What entry on the index? There is no index that tells you how crackpot anybody is. It doesn’t say something like Up to 100 = Maverick, 101 to 200 = Edgy, 201 to 300 = Crank, 301 to 400 = Crackpot, over 400 = Nutjob. That’s why the whole thing is a waste of time. Anybody who doesn’t recognise this is kidding themselves, and failing to recognise that it’s just a way of sneering at some guy who comes up with a new idea. If the guy is right, it’s going to mean plenty of other people are wrong, so they use nonsense like this to encourage others to dismiss the idea instead of examining both it and the supporting evidence.
Tell you what, let’s try putting things to the test. If I say “there exists an ether”, does this make me a crackpot, and if so, why?
I’ve just bought a used copy off Amazon.co.uk, I’m really interested in this sort of thing. Talking of cranks, I think the wiki article is good: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person
[i]"In the latter case, when scientific paradigms are overthrown, a belief previously considered cranky could in principle later be considered mainstream. Examples are rare, but they do exist; for example, the notion of continental drift proposed by Alfred Wegener was widely considered by contemporary geologists to be cranky, but was eventually dramatically vindicated (Williams 2000)…
Nonetheless, since the nature of mainstream opinion can change over time, it is useful to define crankery in terms of characteristics which are independent of the allegedly cranky belief. Indeed, it is widely accepted that the true hallmark of the crank is not so much asserting that, for example, the Earth is flat as making this assertion in the face of all counterarguments and contrary evidence. Certain authors (see the references) who have studied the phenomenon of crankery agree that this is the essential defining characteristic of a crank: No argument or evidence can ever be sufficient to make a crank abandon his belief…[/i]
The bolding is mine, and it’s a crucial point. If some guy comes up with some new idea that offers a solution to some mystery or problem, and if it’s backed by evidence, then if people call him a crackpot without examining that evidence just because he challenges their beliefs, then those people are the cranks. Some people who take pride in their scientific rationality believe in time travel, parallel worlds, unseen dimensions, and other things for which we have no actual scientific evidence whatsoever. Rather than holding a current-best-fit theory, they hold a belief, and it can be so unshakeable that it qualifies as a conviction. They then dismiss and deny any evidence that challenges this conviction. It’s the sort of thing we’re used to seeing in religion, but it’s a psychological trait rather than a religious trait, and it isn’t limited to religion.
Rasava: Short answer, no. They could have a good point, or they could be misguided if not incorrect. The biggest thing to remember with a lot of the people this crackpot index is referring to, and rightfully so, is one that Farsight took a crack at:
A lot of your philosophers fall into the same category. The language of physics is math. If they can’t speak it, they might not get all the nuances of what they’re talking about. It’s when someone tries to create a whole theory without knowing the first thing about even calculus that we have a problem…
It’s not a crackpot scale (though I like the idea). The new entry is trying to discredit the index as if anyone is going to take it seriously because you feel it’s some sort of threat to you. It’s a joke, but some of the greatest truths are revealed with humor. It’s obviously not real, but it says something true, and it says something about you that you got this fired up about it.
No, it doesn’t, because the ether might well exist. It’s just taboo to call it that.
Tell me your full theory and I’ll tell you if you’re a crackpot. If you really are comparing yourself to Einstein, you better blow my mind. Oh, and the whole world’s mind, too. Go.
P.S. Lots of people don’t think string theory is a theory and it’s not well-established…even the string theorists know that.
Anthem: it’s not a threat, it’s an insult, and a deliberate one. It employs humour to mock and sneer, and encourage dismissal instead of listening to the argument and examining the evidence.
I’m glad you said that, because those aren’t my words, they’re Einstein’s, from his 1920 Leyden address entitled Ether and the Theory of Relativity, see zionism-israel.com/Albert_Ei … tivity.htm.
It isn’t “my theory”, it’s a synthesis. It’s derived from what Einstein actually said. He started in 1905 with the SR postulate that said the speed of light is constant, but moved to a variable speed of light for GR. See his 1911 paper On the Influence of Gravitation on the Propagation of light at arxiv.org/abs/physics/0204044. The result is best described by this synopsis:
[i]In barest essence energy is a volume of stressed space.
Mass is a measure of the amount of energy that is not moving in aggregate with respect to the observer.
Charge is curl, charge is twist. The electromagnetic field is a region of twisted space, and if we move through it we perceive a turning action which we then identify as a magnetic field.
Time exists like heat exists, being an emergent property of motion. It’s a cumulative measure of motion used in the relative measure of motion compared to the motion of light, and the only motion is through space. So time has no length, time doesn’t flow and we don’t travel through it.
Gravity is an extended tension gradient opposing matter/energy stress, wherein the speed of light varies resulting in gravitational time dilation and attraction through refraction.
Space is a one-trick pony, and the only trick is distance. The photon is energy, and is a rippling change of distance that makes for more volume. A change of distance is a distance, so space and energy are the same thing.
The photon is a wave of distance variation. We can tie it in knots to make particles with mass and charge. The electron is a trivial knot, the positron is its mirror image. So matter is just space with a twist that’s tied in a knot.
The common photon amplitude is a spatial extension of 3.86 x 10^-13 metres, and is the quantum of quantum mechanics. The wave function doesn’t describe where a point particle can be found, it describes where the extension is.
The electron is a trivial knot, a turn and a twist. The proton is a trefoil knot, three turns and a twist. The neutron is a proton plus a twist and two turns. The neutrino is a turn, a mere running loop, and muon and tau neutrinos have more loops, as do the muon and tau themselves. The antiparticles are mirror-image knots that go the other way, and the unstable particles are not knots, so they always come undone.
The fine structure constant is related to kissing numbers, and is a running constant wherein gravity is the result of a gradient in the relative strength of the electromagnetic force and the strong force.
The weak interaction is mere friction, the residual strong force is mere neutron linkage. The electromagnetic force is caused by twisted space, whilst the strong force is the stretch that keeps space together, and gravity is the reaction and the gradient between the two.
The Universe expands because space is like a compressed elastic solid, with nothing outside to hold it in. There is no space beyond the universe, there is no distance, there is no there. So the universe is unbounded, but finite and flat. More space expands more, so the expansion is going exponential and gravity is losing its grip. It expands between the galaxies but not within, so space is not homogeneous. It’s dark, it’s energy, it causes flat galactic rotation curves and gravitational lensing, so we don’t need dark matter.
Black holes are frozen stars, where gravity is so strong because space is so strong that c is zero, so light can’t move, nothing can move, and nothing can fall through the event horizon. It’s the end of time, the end of events, and there is no singularity and never will be. So there’s an outside but no inside, it’s solid space but no space too, a something and nothing, a bubble, a shell, a hole in space, like the universe inside out. [/i]
A couple things. First, for being so disdainful of string theory, you sure do talk about turns and twists and knots a lot.
Let me put it to you this way: Distance doesn’t exist. Only time and motion exist, and distance is the cumulative measure of motion over time.
Does that sound stupid? Yes. Could you formulate your thoughts this way? Yes. Does it matter? No. Is it earth-shattering? No. So time doesn’t exist…big deal–right or not, people have said that before. Sounds a lot like the theories regarding a ‘non-spatial’ and a ‘spatial’ aspect of the universe which, to me, just sounds like a transformation of GR.
What proof do you have that space does not expand within galaxies? Moreover, how would that make space non-homogeneous?
You should watch Lawrence Krauss’ A Universe from Nothing. Youtube it.
So, how can you talk with certainty about this but, say, Stephen Hawking can’t?
Also, again with the variable speed of light…tell me, what is your constant in this universe with varying c? Where do you start? How do you generate anything meaningful? Moreover, if this is really what GR tells us, then why is c a constant in his field equations?
Yep. But what I’m talking about is related to real measurables like electron spin, and real experiments like pair production. It’s much more grounded in reality than string theory.
It isn’t true. Hold your hands up a metre apart. There’s a distance. Now waggle your hands. There’s motion. Now try showing me some time.
It is like a transformation of GR, and yes, people have said this about time before. See Presentism by John McTaggart in 1908, or even Aristotle. But don’t think it doesn’t matter, it does. It changes everything. You realise that we calibrate the second based on the motion of light, so it isn’t time running slower down near the surface of a planet, it’s light. Before long you’re into c = √(1/ε[size=85]0[/size]μ[size=85]0[/size]) and Z[size=85]0[/size] = √(μ[size=85]0[/size]/ε[size=85]0[/size]), and you know how gravity works.
I don’t. But this isn’t my assertion, see pnas.org/site/misc/classics2.shtml for mention of the “raisins in a cake” analogy. The cake expands, but the raisins don’t.
It’s really simple. Take a sphere of homogeneous space, have the outer layer expand whilst the central portion doesn’t, and your sphere is no longer homogeneous. The energy density in the expanded portion is now lower than in the centre, and where the two regions meet, there will be a gradient. This is exactly the same kind of gradient as we see in a gravitational field.
Krauss gives a good talk. However general relativity doesn’t tell us that space is curved. At least not Einstein’s relativity. The picture of the galactic cluster at 26:40 shows gravitational lensing, but it’s a refraction, not curved space. Nice to see him talking about “the energy of nothing” and vacuum energy. But he then talks about dark matter whilst omitting MOND and variants, and says gravity is negative energy. It isn’t. Yes, the universe is flat, but the total energy isn’t zero. He also said 70% of all the energy is in empty space and we have no idea why it’s there, but we do. It’s there because space and energy are the same thing. I find “Anthropic Mania” repugnant too, and I like the string theory joke. There are no infinities in nature, but like I said, a good talk.
Because I understand the fundamentals of physics, things like energy, mass, charge, and gravity.
Nothing is constant. Realising this is where you start. Then you generate plenty of meaningful things.
Because he talking about “the metric”. What you measure. And you always measure the speed of light to be the same, because your rods and clocks are made of the stuff.
Right then, you are a crackpot. Not because you’re saying something glaringly incorrect, but because you think you’re a visionary for saying something that you admittedly think is only mildly different. Also for saying Stephen Hawking is a moron.
Oh, and I can show you a time.
See? There it went. Here, I’ll show you another one.
Wait for it…
There!
Time is just as easily understood as distance if you try. And either fundamental unit can disappear if you relate the other to the speed of light.
You can’t show me a time at all. There it went just didn’t cut it, because I didn’t see any time going anywhere. There is simply no evidence for it. Open up a clock and look at the cogs whirring inside. You can’t see time passing. It isn’t flowing, and it isn’t going anywhere. All you can see it things moving, not through time, but through space. Clocks clock up motion, not time. How do we measure time? The definition of the second is:
the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.
This radiation is microwave radiation, essentially light. So we arrange a hyperfine transition, then sit there counting the peaks of the light waves coming at us. When we get to 9,192,631,770 we tick off a second. Which means we’re defining the second using the motion of light. Ever wondered why we always measure the speed of light to be the same?
If you ignore the evidence that’s up to you. But calling me a crackpot cuts no ice. Your justification is non-existent, it’s unrelated to the theory and moreover untrue, because I didn’t call myself a visionary, and I didn’t call Hawkins a moron. But you believe I’m a crackpot, and so you prove the point I made about en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(person where it says this is the essential defining characteristic of a crank: No argument or evidence can ever be sufficient to make a crank abandon his belief.
Oh that’s rich
Just testing, Anthem.
Now try looking at the evidence instead of dismissing it.
Riiiiiiiight…
And I’m serious. I did show you a time just then. Perceiving a length of time is just as natural to us as perceiving a length of…length. Just different. I can’t show you a taste, either, but we can perceive that. I can give you an aromatic hydrocarbon or a grain of salt, sure, but that is not a taste.
Here’s another way of looking at it: put a cup on the table. Take another cup and try to put it in the same place. You can’t until you move the first cup. So, you move the first and put the second in its place. They both occupied pretty much the same dimensions relative to an origin placed on the table. Without another dimension to travel in, time, it would not be possible to put the two different cups in the other three same dimensions. To describe the location of the cup, the three physical dimensions are not enough.
All you’re going to say is, “No, it’s thanks to motion that we can put the second cup in the place of the first.” I just gave a simplistic way of looking at time as a dimension, which is what you wanted.
I’m not saying that time does exist or it doesn’t, although I err towards the former. I am saying it doesn’t matter in your ‘synthesis’. If either derivation can get you to the same answer then it’s just another way of looking at it. Maybe it has some practical application, like looking at things in the frequency domain with a Fourier Transformation, but you’ve said yourself you’re not a mathematician. Tell me, what does your ‘synthesis’ do differently?
No, you didn’t.
It might be “natural”, but it’s wrong. I can show you a length in space. I just hold my arms up. But you can’t show me a “length” of time because a duration isn’t a length. That’s just a figure of speech, like travelling through time. You know you don’t literally climb to a higher temperature. So why if you’re just sitting at your desk doing nothing, do you think you’re “travelling through time”? You’re not travelling anywhere. The only reason you think time is “passing” is because your clock is ticking and light is moving from your computer screen to your eye, and inside your head all the synapses are signalling, and those signals involve electrons, and those electrons have spin, blah blah, and all this stuff is moving.
You’re getting it. Time is derived from motion. If there ain’t no motion, there ain’t no time. And all that motion, is through space. The dimensions of space are those where we have freedom of motion. We can literally move from one point in space to another point in space, and we can point to those two points and say that they are separated by a distance, and that distance is a length. But we don’t have freedom of motion in the “time” dimension. It’s just a dimension derived from the measurement of motion through space. It’s a dimension of measure, not a dimension that offers freedom of motion. That’s why we have 3+1 dimensions, not 4.
I say time exists. I say time exists like heat exists. And like heat, it’s an emergent property of motion. Stop the clock or freeze the frame, and you stop motion, not time.
But it does matter, it’s crucial. The maths doesn’t change, SR time dilation is still based on Pythagoras’ theorem. But your interpretation changes, and then mysteries start tumbling like dominoes.
It delivers understanding like never before. If you understand time you can easily understand gravity, then inhomogeneous space, then dark matter, the expansion of the universe, inflation. A whole lot of things get a whole lot easier.
Because it’s a quale. That’s something different, to do with sensory perception, not physics. See the start of TIME EXPLAINED below for a bit more on this.