Interactive Crackpot Index
A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics. Credits and © John Baez.
Click the appropriate buttons below to add points for:
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Starting Credit
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Every statement widely agreed on to be false.
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Every statement that is clearly vacuous.
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Every statement that is logically inconsistent.
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Each logically inconsistent statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
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Using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
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EACH WORD IN ALL CAPS.
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Each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
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Each claim that quantum mechanics, is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
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Pointing out that they have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
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Beginning the description of their theory by saying how long they have been working on it.
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Mailing their theory to someone they don't know personally, and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear it would be stolen.
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Offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in their theory.
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Each new term they invent and use without properly defining it.
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Each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so I need someone to express it in terms of equations."
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Arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
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Arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain why they occur, or fails to provide a mechanism.
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Each favorable comparison of themselves to Einstein, or claiming that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without evidence).
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Claiming their work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift."
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Emailing or threatening to email anyone to complaining about this site or the original crackpot index.
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Suggesting they deserve a Nobel Prize.
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Each favorable comparison of themselves to Newton, or claiming that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
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Each use of science fiction or mythology as if they were fact.
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Defending themselves by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule for past theories.
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Naming something after themselves (e.g. talking about the "Bossbear Field Equation" when they are known as bossbear.
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Talking about how great their theory is, but never actually explaining it.
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Each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
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Each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
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Suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported.
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Suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas they now advocate.
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Claiming that their theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
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Alluding to delays in their work while they spent time in an asylum, ore referencing the psychiatrist who tried to talk them out of their theory.
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Comparing those who argue against their theories to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
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Claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent their work from gaining its well-deserved fame.
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Comparing themselves to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on their case, and so on.
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Claiming that when their theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is.
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Claiming they have a revolutionary theory but giving no testable predictions.
11a.
Extra points for emphasizing they worked on their own.
36a.
Extra points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked their theories will be forced to recant.
