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Written by Vanessa on 2025-01-21 at 14:08

just got my first crackpot mail from someone who wants to disprove Einstein. Guess I'm a real physicist now 🥰

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Descendants

Written by Nick on 2025-01-21 at 14:32

@vacuumbubbles Mazel tov! How do they rate on the Crackpot Index? :-)

https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

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Written by Vanessa on 2025-01-22 at 17:30

@internic can't really judge sadly because they kept rambling about string theory a lot and I'm not particularly knowledgeable sadly.

For the Einstein part, around 40 to 50. I also feel like "stating your Erdös number" should be on that index because they did that too.

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Written by John Carlos Baez on 2025-01-22 at 18:34

@vacuumbubbles - Congratulations on getting your first crackpot email. The first of many, I'm sure.

Stating one's Erdös number is not typical behavior among physics crackpots, which is why it's not on the list - in fact I've never seen it. But it's definitely a bad sign.

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Written by Nick on 2025-01-22 at 20:20

@johncarlosbaez @vacuumbubbles Wouldn't an Erdös number at least imply having published something with a coauthor? I feel like that's already putting one in the upper echelon of crackpots. Often it seems like they can't find even one other person who buys into their ideas (probably because they're usually incoherent).

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Written by John Carlos Baez on 2025-01-22 at 20:27

@internic @vacuumbubbles - yes, I think anyone who hasn't published with coauthors has an Erdos number of ∞. Of course they can still lie.

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Written by Nick on 2025-01-22 at 20:49

@johncarlosbaez @vacuumbubbles There is the occasional more scholarly work of crackpottery. I actually find these more enjoyable, because they are at least coherent enough to allow some sort of criticism of the content. One of my favorites in this genre is https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9506082

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Written by John Carlos Baez on 2025-01-22 at 21:28

@internic - I find the more scholarly ones tiring because they take real work to sort out! I enjoy the many emails I get like this:

Subject: New Gravity - Solutions for Global Warming

Based on Buhler, any mass can be made weightless thus cars, trains, planes and spacecraft with less or no weight will save fossil fuels in the future.

The Sun's light can be bent away from the earth, using repulsion in space, instantly cooling the earth.

or this:

Subject: AI Published & Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Validated Perpetual Motion Machine Breakthrough paves the way for Unlimited Carbon-Free Energy

as if "AI published" was supposed to reassure us. 😆

Or this:

I hope all is well with you. Attached is a paper that I wrote that explains some miscellaneous things about the world. I think that it’s mathematically provable that spacetime’s dimensional layout is shaped as a 5-layered Möbius loop brane and lays ground bulk to radiate a dual bulbed 5-Sphere within the one superdimension of energy. However, I don’t know the math to prove it. I quote Edward Witten and Leonard Susskind as supporting evidence that my proposed configuration of spacetime makes sense. Feel free to do the math and prove it correct. Please let me know your thoughts when you get a chance. Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope you have an enjoyable weekend.

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Written by Nick on 2025-01-23 at 04:47

@johncarlosbaez I feel like this combination of sentiments distills to much of crackpottery: "I think that it’s mathematically provable that ... However, I don’t know the math to prove it. ... Feel free to do the math and prove it correct." People who are certain they are correct even though they don't know the math. Or people who have decided that, because they don't know the math, the "one true theory" must be expressible in very simple math.

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Written by Nick on 2025-01-23 at 05:00

@johncarlosbaez I know what you mean about crackpot theories that take too much work to unravel, but I found the one I linked to pretty hilarious just based on the notion of claiming that Charles Misner didn't know how to do basic GR and furthermore claiming that GR actually predicts that the solar system should be static, which apparently no one realized in the many decades earlier working with, e.g., the post-Newtonian approximation. 😆

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Written by John Carlos Baez on 2025-01-23 at 19:01

@internic - Yes, it's very amusing to see a refutation of Misner but l didn't have the energy to look at the math.

I'd completely forgotten about Yilmaz's theory, which once was discussed here and there....

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