Crackpot index
Encyclopedia
The crackpot index is a number that rates scientific claims or the individuals that make them, in conjunction with a method for computing that number. The method, proposed semi-seriously by mathematical physicist John Baez in 1992, computes an index by responses to a list of 36 questions, each positive response contributing a point value ranging from 1 to 50. The computation is initialized with a value of −5.
Presumably any positive value of the index indicates crankiness.
Though the index was not proposed as a serious method, it nevertheless has become popular in Internet discussions of whether a claim or an individual is crank
y, particularly in physics
(e.g., at the Usenet newsgroup sci.physics), or in mathematics.
Chris Caldwell's Prime Pages
has a version adapted to prime number
research which is a field with many famous unsolved problems that are easy to understand for amateur mathematicians.
An earlier crackpot index is Fred J. Gruenberger's "A Measure for Crackpots" published in December 1962 by the RAND Corporation.
Presumably any positive value of the index indicates crankiness.
Though the index was not proposed as a serious method, it nevertheless has become popular in Internet discussions of whether a claim or an individual is crank
Crank (person)
"Crank" is a pejorative term used for a person who unshakably holds a belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false. A "cranky" belief is so wildly at variance with commonly accepted belief as to be ludicrous...
y, particularly in physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
(e.g., at the Usenet newsgroup sci.physics), or in mathematics.
Chris Caldwell's Prime Pages
Prime pages
The Prime Pages is a website about prime numbers maintained by Chris Caldwell at the University of Tennessee at Martin.The site maintains the list of the "5,000 largest known primes", selected smaller primes of special forms, and many "top twenty" lists for primes of various forms...
has a version adapted to prime number
Prime number
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
research which is a field with many famous unsolved problems that are easy to understand for amateur mathematicians.
An earlier crackpot index is Fred J. Gruenberger's "A Measure for Crackpots" published in December 1962 by the RAND Corporation.
See also
- Crank (person)Crank (person)"Crank" is a pejorative term used for a person who unshakably holds a belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false. A "cranky" belief is so wildly at variance with commonly accepted belief as to be ludicrous...
- List of amateur mathematicians
- List of topics characterized as pseudoscience
- Pseudophysics
External links
- John Baez, The Crackpot Index.
- Michael ShermerMichael ShermerMichael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members...
, truncated version, Skeptics Society - Crank Dot Net, a list of websites, roughly organized by subject area and sub-categorised by crankiness, including anti-crank sites.