Crackpot index: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:25, 24 January 2009

Revision as of 13:07, 19 February 2009

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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 (person)|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<ref>{{cite web |url=http://primes.utm.edu/notes/crackpot.html |title= ''The PrimeNumbers' Crackpot index'' |accessmonthdayaccessdate= October 23 |accessdaymonth=2007 |accessyeardateformat= 2007|authormdyauthor=Chris Caldwell}}</ref> 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"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wwwcgi.rand.org/pubs/papers/2006/P2678.pdf|format=PDF|title=A Measure for Crackpots|author=Fred J. Gruenberger}}</ref> published in December 1962 by the [[RAND Corporation]].