The Crackpot (Scientist) Index

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html ^ | John Baez

[kidd]

30 points for any claim that human induced global warming is a proven fact.

[CWRWinger]

"The Crackpot (Scientist) Index"

An acquaintance of mine, a university science dept. head, told me a few years ago, that the stupidist things that will be done in the next couple of decades will be done in the name of science.

[kidd]

another 30 points for mentioning global warming in any physics presentation

[Physicist]

But that's not local. It has the same "black magic" lurking behind it as any other interpretation. Things like particle decays are still ultimately random (although the correlations between them are non-locally causal in that model).

My problem with it is that it posits a new process--the pilot wave--that isn't mathematically necessary to explain the observed data.

[Physicist]

An acquaintance of mine, a university science dept. head, told me a few years ago, that the stupidist things that will be done in the next couple of decades will be done in the name of science.

It's worse than that, I'm afraid: the stupidest things will be done in the name of "the children".

[js1138]

Do I qualify?

What's your point. Quantum theory has always been regarded wit horror by those who best understand it. In the meantime, nearly everything you touch that uses electricity has some part that could not have been conceived or designed without quantum theory.

I find it odd that for thousands of years philosophers argued monism vs dualism, and now we have numbers to prove that both views of reality are true at the same time.

[RightWhale]

Congrats on your 10 points. Well deserved.

[RightWhale]

You have earned at least 60 and probably over 100 points on that post alone.

[OBAFGKM]

"But that's not local. It has the same "black magic" lurking behind it as any other interpretation. Things like particle decays are still ultimately random (although the correlations between them are non-locally causal in that model)."

So what? It's a hidden variable theory.

[OBAFGKM]

"My problem with it is that it posits a new process--the pilot wave--that isn't mathematically necessary to explain the observed data."

(I had to go double check my recollections on this!) It's not at all a new process. DeBroglie proposed it as early as 1925, but abandoned it, ironically enough, precisely because Bohr pointed out to him that it's non-local.

Correct me if I'm missing something, but the fundamental difference between Bohm's (pilot wave) and Bohr's (standard) interpretation is Bohm's claims that a particle exists between the time it's created and the time it's observed and Bohr's claims that it doesn't. Which one strikes you as requiring more black magic?

[RightWhale]

Saw in "Physics Today" an article explaining what it takes to be a crackpot scientist. It comes down to whether the person appears to actually believe his own theory. If he does, he is a crackpot and might submit a manuscript to you, a total stranger, to keep secret and check the math. Real scientists admit their own theories are probably ultimately BS.

For example, I will freely admit that every theory I have ever posted to FR is something made up on the spur of the moment, especially if I found it on the newswires. Doesn't mean I am not a crackpot, nor does it mean I am a scientist.

How many points? :)

[Alamo-Girl]

A few scientific anomalies for the discussion:

Is the Fine Structure Constant changing?
Light Exceeds its own Speed Limit – or does it?
Speed of Light may not be constant
Strange Sight: Inexplicable Light from a Black Hole
Non Locality gets more Real
First entanglement of three Photons

And a few of my favorite theories (note, pdf format:)

Quantum Cosmology of 5D Non-Compactified Kaluza-Klein Theory
Solar System Tests of Higher Dimensional Gravity
The Big Bang as a Higher Dimensional Shock Wave

The above reports illustrate that 4D matter of all kinds can arise as a manifestation of a higher-dimensional vacuum.

IMHO, we commonly view reality in 3D and can rationalize some but not the ramifications of 4D. Furthermore, we have good evidence for 5D and more.

IMHO, the choice of coordinates we perceive is a limitation of our biology and not reality.

I think we need – really need – out of box thinkers (not crackpots though.) Otherwise, we shall just continue to pat one another on the back and slowly make few modest adjustments to accepted scientific doctrine.

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. Einstein's speech 'My Credo' to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, autumn 1932, Einstein: A Life in Science, Michael White and John Gribbin, page 262

And now for the final question: what's my score?

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Another opportunity to be wrong grasped like a nettle!

[Alamo-Girl]

Rats, can rationalize some but not the ramifications of 4D should be can rationalize some but not all of the ramifications of 4D

[RightWhale]

Just to get in the ballpark, I compared your level of abstraction with that of Alfred Korzybski, who achieved a lifetime CI of over 6000. It will be difficult to top Korzybski, but each journey must begin with a single step.

[MarkWar]

>Me thinks you have issues with E=mc2 and are just preparing your closet exit.
>You have earned at least 60 and probably over 100 points on that post alone.

I'm transparent like glass. You guys see right through me! Darn it...

(RW "...on that post alone" -- it occurred to me (but I abandoned the idea because I'm lazy, as well as a crackpot) that it might be fun to put together a simple post, say one paragraph, one long paragraph, that scores a perfect crackpot rating on the index. If anyone here has the energy to put together such a post, I'd love to be pinged for that...)

Mark W.

[Physicist]

So what? It's a hidden variable theory.

Look back: I specified local hidden variables straight away in post 17. That was specifically because of Bohm's interpretation.

[Alamo-Girl]

Jeepers! I'm a 6000 to you! Kewl...

Seriously, I'd appreciate your critique of any of theories on my favorite links.

[Physicist]

Bohm's claims that a particle exists between the time it's created and the time it's observed and Bohr's claims that it doesn't.

I think that's a mischaracterization of the Copenhagen Interpretation. It would be more correct to say that (according to the CI) a particle's properties don't exist before they're measured.

Which one strikes you as requiring more black magic?

Neither. The nonlocality itself is the black magic, in my mind. There's a retroactivity about it, if you will, and that's what leads to all the counterintuitive shenanigans of objects at the quantum scale.

[RightWhale]

Dr Oliver Manuel, prof at the U of Missouri believes the sun is mostly iron, not hydrogen, and that the entire solar system is the remnants of a supernova 5 billion years ago. As evidence he cites the occurrence of strange xenon in the system.

"Manuel will present his the evidence for his assertion in his paper, "The Origin of the Solar System with an Iron-rich Sun," at 10 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 10, at the AAS' 199th annual meeting at the Hilton Washington and Towers in Washington, D.C."

I see this meeting already happened, but I will be looking for a CI rating from the attendees.