Enter John Baez 'Crackpot Index' in Google. vbmenu_register("postmenu_6289", true);
Hamsters, Crackpots, Chimpanzees, John Baez Crackpot Index John Baez created a crackpot index which is to be applied to any idea that he doesn't like, as the zeroeth law of John Baez's crackpot index is this:
0. Some crackpots are more equal than others.
Einstein counters Baez's crackpot index with his noble words:
“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it” --Einstein
Contrast John Baez's snarky crackpot index with the humble nobility of Eistein's encouragement to think differently.
the humble Eisntein tells us that the gods are laughing at Baez.
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” --Einstein
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” --Einstein
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”--Einstein
Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. --Einstein
Baez would have been one of those physicists calling Boltzman and Einstein crackpots; and then turning right around and promoting his own crackpottery as the gospel truth.
Indeed, there's a lot of sanctified crackpottery these days, such as anything that has to do with Hamsters:
From: math.ucr.edu/home/baez/
"And finally, get a taste of Derek Wise's work on Cartan geometry, gravity... and hamsters!"
John Baez created a crackpot index which is to be applied to any idea that he doesn't like, as the zeoeth law of John Baez's crackpot index is this:
0. Some crackpots are more equal than others.
On some days, Baez supports NSF funding of string theory and LQG. On other days he doesn't. And like the famous Chimpanzee that Peter Woit references, math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=500 ,
Baez can use his crackpot index to fling s--- with n-degrees of freedom, whenever and wherver he feels like it, sometimes promoting papers like this: "And finally, get a taste of Derek Wise's work on Cartan geometry, gravity... and hamsters!" math.ucr.edu/home/baez/.
So it is that his Baez's Crackpot Index is used as a peurile tool to keep the chimpanzees of his choosing under control, as referenced by woit:
math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=500
Perhaps the most outrageous quote is an accurate one from me characterizing some of my experiences criticizing string theory from a position outside the field’s standard rigid hierarchy as being analogous to what happens when one messes with the dominance hierarchy of a chimpanzee troupe. This leads to a lot of strange behavior, flinging of s---, showing of behinds, and all sorts of bizarre behavior. In order to avoid offending people I wasn’t referring to, I should explain that I had in mind specifically some of my experiences when first starting this blog, see in particular the comment section of math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3.
math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=500
The irony here is that just as in George Orwell's Animal Farm, the snarky pigs come to think they are superior to the men, with a simple premise, "some crackpots are more equal than others."
Here is the snarky index by which Baez deftly accomplishes this embittered task, for Lee Smoling pointed out in his book The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of Science, and What Comes Next, that mathemticians often have a chip on their shoulder after high school.
ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
I have added the 0th law of Baez's crackpot index, which he left out.
The Crackpot Index
John Baez
A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:
0. Some crackpots are more equal than others. (Baez forgot to include this)
1. A -5 point starting credit.
2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
4. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
5. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
6. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
7. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).
8. 5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
9. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
10. 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
11. 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.
12. 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
13. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.
14. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.
15. 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".
16. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
17. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".
18. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
19. 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".
20. 20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index. (E.g., saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.)
21. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.
22. 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
23. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
24. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
25. 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)
26. 20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.
27. 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
28. 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
29. 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)
30. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
31. 30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
32. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.
33. 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
34. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
35. 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
36. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
37. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.
ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
I have added the 0th law of Baez's crackpot index, which he left out.
Here's Baez crackpot index selectively applied to Brian Greene and String Theory:
kuro5hin.org/story/2006/10/31/161746/39
Here's Baez's crackpot index selectively applied to LQG and String Theory
physicsbuzz.blogspot.com/2006/10/string-theory-loop-quantum-gravity-and.html
Does Baez apply his crackpot index to his physics students who write about Hamsters instead of foundational physics problems?
Basically Baez's crackpot index is the reason why there has been no progress in physics for the past thirty years, as he sees the asking of big questions and contemplations on the foundation of physics as Crackpottery, whenever he wants to, as that it how the pomo-hipster operates.
Indeed, Socrates was sentenced to death for asking big questions, and humbly admitting that all he knew was that he knew nothing. Socrates was sentenced to death as a crackpot.
Ludwig Van Boltzman, the founder of statistical mechanics, was considered a crackpot--I can just hear Baez snarking him on a blog in 1900:
From:
shsu.edu/~icc_cmf/bio/boltzman.html
... Boltzmann was seconded by Felix Klein. The battle between Boltzmann and Ostwald resembled the battle of the bull with the supple fighter. However, this time the bull was victorious ... . The arguments of Boltzmann carried the day. We, the young mathematicians of that time, were all on the side of Boltzmann... .
Ostwald led the opposition to Boltzmann's ideas which were opposed by many European scientists, they misunderstood them, not fully grasping the statistical nature of his reasoning. However some, including Mach, thought the arguments were too violent, and this certainly appeared to be the case when Boltzmann attempted suicide while a colleague of Ostwald.
In 1904 Boltzmann visited the World's Fair in St Louis, USA. He lectured on applied mathematics and then went on to visit Berkeley and Stanford. Unfortunately he failed to realise that the new discoveries concerning radiation that he learnt about on this visit were about to prove his theories correct.
Boltzmann continued to defend his belief in atomic structure and in a 1905 publication Populäre Schriften he tried to explain how the physical world could be described by differential equations which represented the macroscopic view without representing the underlying atomic structure. :-
May I be excused for saying with banality that the forest hides the trees for those who think that they disengage themselves from atomistics by the consideration of differential equations.
Attacks on his work continued and he began to feel that his life's work was about to collapse despite his defence of his theories. Depressed and in bad health, Boltzmann committed suicide just before experiment verified his work.
On holiday with his wife and daughter at the Bay of Duino near Trieste, he hanged himself while his wife and daughter were swimming.
shsu.edu/~icc_cmf/bio/boltzman.html
Well, just out of curiosity, what have Baez's contributions to physics consisted of? What gives him the right to call Boltzman (the founder of Statistical Mechanics) and other deep thinkers crackpots?