Crackpot index: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 07:38, 17 August 2009

Revision as of 18:52, 15 June 2010

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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.

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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'' |accessdate= October 23, 2007 |dateformat= mdyauthor=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]].

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* [http://www.crank.net Crank Dot Net], a list of websites, roughly organized by subject area and sub-categorised by crankiness, including anti-crank sites.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crackpot Index}}

[[Category:Humor]]

[[Category:Usenet]]