"The Universe of MOTION" (book review)
mce...@cnsvax.uwec.edu
(Book Review):
"THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION", by Dewey B. Larson, 1984, North
Pacific Publishers, Portland, Oregon, 456 pages, indexed,
hardcover.
"THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION" contains FINAL SOLUTIONS to
most ALL astrophysical mysteries.
This book is Volume III of a revised and enlarged
edition of "THE STRUCTURE OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE", 1959.
Volume I is "NOTHING BUT MOTION" (1979), and Volume II is
"THE BASIC PROPERTIES OF MATTER" (1988).
Most books and journal articles on the subject of
astrophysics are bristling with integrals, partial
differentials, and other FANCY MATHEMATICS. In this book, by
contrast, mathematics is conspicuous by its absence, except
for some relatively simple formulas imbedded in the text.
Larson emphasizes CONCEPTS and declares that mathematical
agreement with a theory does NOT guarantee its conceptual
validity.
Dewey B. Larson was a retired engineer with a Bachelor
of Science Degree in Engineering Science from Oregon State
University. He developed the Theory described in his books
while trying to find a way to MATHEMATICALLY CALCULATE the
properties of chemical compounds based ONLY on the elements
they contain.
"THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION" describes the astrophysical
portions of Larson's CONSISTENT, INTEGRATED, COMPREHENSIVE,
GENERAL UNIFIED Theory of the physical universe, a kind of
"grand unified field theory" that orthodox physicists and
astro-physicists CLAIM to be looking for. It is built on two
postulates about the physical and mathematical nature of
space and time:
(1) The physical universe is composed ENTIRELY of ONE
component, MOTION, existing in THREE dimensions, in DISCRETE
units, and with two RECIPROCAL aspects, SPACE and TIME.
(2) The physical universe conforms to the relations of
ORDINARY COMMUTATIVE mathematics, its primary magnitudes are
ABSOLUTE, and its geometry is EUCLIDEAN.
From these two postulates, Larson was able to build a
COMPLETE theoretical universe, from photons and subatomic
particles to the giant elliptical galaxies, by combining the
concept of INWARD AND OUTWARD SCALAR MOTIONS with
translational, vibrational, rotational, and rotational-
vibrational motions. At each step in the development, he was
able to match parts of his theoretical universe with
corresponding parts in the real physical universe, including
EVEN THINGS NOT YET DISCOVERED. For example, in his 1959
book, he first predicted the existence of EXPLODING GALAXIES,
several years BEFORE astronomers started finding them. They
are a NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE of his comprehensive Theory. And
when quasars were discovered, he had a related explanation
ready for those also.
As a result of his theory, which he called "THE
RECIPROCAL SYSTEM", Larson TOTALLY REJECTED many of the sacred
doctrines of orthodox physicists and astrophysicists,
including black holes, neutron stars, degenerate matter,
quantum wave mechanics (as applied to atomic structure),
"nuclear" physics, general relativity, relativistic mass
increases, relativistic Doppler shifts, nuclear fusion in
stars, and the big bang, all of which he considered to be
nothing more than MATHEMATICAL FANTASIES. He was very
critical of the AD HOC assumptions, uncertainty principles,
solutions in principle, "no other way" declarations, etc.,
used to maintain them.
"THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION" is divided into 31 chapters.
It begins with a description of how galaxies are built from
the gravitational attraction between globular star clusters
which are formed from intergalactic gas and dust clouds that
accumulate from the decay products of cosmic rays coming in
from the ANTI-MATTER HALF of the physical universe. (Galaxy
formation from the MYTHICAL "big bang" is a big mystery to
orthodox astronomers.) He then goes on to describe life
cycles of stars and how binary and multiple star systems and
solar systems result from Type I supernova explosions of
SINGLE stars.
Several chapters are devoted to quasars which, according
to Larson, are densely-packed clusters of stars that have
been ejected from the central bulges of exploding galaxies
and are actually traveling FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT
(although most of that speed is AWAY FROM US IN TIME).
Astronomers and astrophysicists who run up against
observations that contradict their theories would find
Larson's explanations quite valuable if considered with an
OPEN MIND. For example, they used to believe that GAMMA RAY
BURSTS originated from pulsars, which exist primarily in the
plane or central bulge of our galaxy. But the new gamma ray
telescope in earth orbit observed that the bursts come from
ALL DIRECTIONS UNIFORMLY and do NOT correspond with any
visible objects, (except for a few cases of directional
coincidence). Larson's explanation is that the gamma ray
bursts originate from SUPERNOVA EXPLOSIONS in the ANTI-MATTER
HALF of the physical universe, which Larson calls the "cosmic
sector". Because the anti-matter universe exists in a
RECIPROCAL RELATION to our material universe, with the speed
of light as the BOUNDARY between them, and has THREE
dimensions of time and ONLY ONE dimension of space, the
bursts can pop into our material universe ANYWHERE seemingly
at random.
Larson heavily quotes or paraphrases statements from
books, journal articles, and leading physicists and
astronomers. In this book, 351 of them are superscripted
with numbers identifying entries in the reference list at the
end of the book. For example, a quote from the book
"Astronomy: The Cosmic Journey", by William K. Hartmann,
says, "Our hopes of understanding all stars would brighten if
we could explain exactly how binary and multiple stars
form.... Unfortunately we cannot." Larson's book contains
LOGICAL CONSISTENT EXPLANATIONS of such mysteries that are
WORTHY OF SERIOUS CONSIDERATION by ALL physicists,
astronomers, and astrophysicists.
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this
IMPORTANT Book Review is ENCOURAGED.
Robert E. McElwaine
B.S., Physics and Astronomy, UW-EC
John C. Baez
Pacific Publishers, Portland, Oregon, 456 pages, indexed,
hardcover.
Here we have about 92 capitalized words apart from book titles.
We have one claim to have revolutionized astronomy without good
evidence:
"THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION" contains FINAL SOLUTIONS to
most ALL astrophysical mysteries.
Minus the 5-point credit each post gets, this gives a 455-point crackpot index.
However, we also have claims that BOTH relativity AND quantum mechanics are
fundamentally wrong, for 20 points. (Indeed, a wholesale rejection of higher
mathematics. This should perhaps count extra.)
Most books and journal articles on the subject of
astrophysics are bristling with integrals, partial
differentials, and other FANCY MATHEMATICS. In this book, by
contrast, mathematics is conspicuous by its absence, except
for some relatively simple formulas imbedded in the text.
Larson emphasizes CONCEPTS and declares that mathematical
agreement with a theory does NOT guarantee its conceptual
validity.
....
(2) The physical universe conforms to the relations of
ORDINARY COMMUTATIVE mathematics, its primary magnitudes are
ABSOLUTE, and its geometry is EUCLIDEAN.
....
As a result of his theory, which he called "THE
RECIPROCAL SYSTEM", Larson TOTALLY REJECTED many of the sacred
doctrines of orthodox physicists and astrophysicists,
including black holes, neutron stars, degenerate matter,
quantum wave mechanics (as applied to atomic structure),
"nuclear" physics, general relativity, relativistic mass
increases, relativistic Doppler shifts, nuclear fusion in
stars, and the big bang, all of which he considered to be
nothing more than MATHEMATICAL FANTASIES. He was very
critical of the AD HOC assumptions, uncertainty principles,
solutions in principle, "no other way" declarations, etc.,
used to maintain them.
I also feel strongly that indicating your degree is a good sign of having
a cracked pot, so I will henceforth give 5 points for this. This book
review cites the degrees of both the author and the reviewer:
Robert E. McElwaine
B.S., Physics and Astronomy, UW-EC
So tack on 10 more points for a whopping score of 475 on the crackpot index.
Clearly the Larsonites could drastically reduce their crackpot index by
taking it easy on the "caps" key, and I urge them to do so.
To recall, the crackpot index is presently given as follows.
-1) A -5 point starting credit.
0) 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
1) 2 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
2) 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful
correction.
3) 30 points for each posting that claims a revolutionary theory but
gives no concrete testable predictions.
4) 10 points for each favorable comparison of oneself to Einstein, or
claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided
(without good evidence).
5) 10 points for each claim the quantum mechanics is fundamentally
misguided (without good evidence).
6) 20 points for each favorable comparison of oneself to Newton
claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without
evidence).
7) 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for posters
with defective keyboards).
9) 10 points for every use of science fiction works as if they were
fact.
10) 20 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged
in a "conspiracy" to prevent ones work from gaining its well-deserved fame,
or suchlike.
11) 10 points for pointing out that one has gone to school, as if this was
evidence of sanity.
John C. Baez
> "THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION", by Dewey B. Larson, 1984, North
> Pacific Publishers, Portland, Oregon, 456 pages, indexed,
> hardcover.
>
>Here we have about 92 capitalized words apart from book titles.
>We have one claim to have revolutionized astronomy without good
>...for a whopping score of 475 on the crackpot index.
Sorry, I left out the 30 points for claiming to have revolutionized
astronomy without good evidence, so the index is really 505!!
By the way, I welcome suggestions as to how to make this index more
accurate. Of course, I'm not taking any of this too seriously, so
please spare paroxysms of philosophical agony about the definition of
a cracked pot. Also, I only welcome suggestions from those whose
current crackpot index averages below 30 per post.
Patrick Taylor
> "nuclear" physics, general relativity, relativistic mass
>To recall, the crackpot index is presently given as follows.
You should add:
12> 2 points (per word) for well-defined physics terms enclosed in quotation
marks, as if there were something wrong with them.
13> using the word relativistic without knowledge of its meaning, as
evidenced from the context ;-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- Douglas Adams
- Patrick Taylor (Arthur Dent)
Ericsson Network Systems
exu...@exu.ericsson.se "Don't let the .se fool you"
or exu...@ZGNews.Lonestar.Org, exu.e...@memo.ericsson.se
Mcirvin
in a Crackpot Index trial run)
> Most books and journal articles on the subject of
> astrophysics are bristling with integrals, partial
> differentials, and other FANCY MATHEMATICS. In this book, by
> contrast, mathematics is conspicuous by its absence, except
> for some relatively simple formulas imbedded in the text.
> Larson emphasizes CONCEPTS and declares that mathematical
> agreement with a theory does NOT guarantee its conceptual
> validity.
Expressing disdain for the elitism of "fancy mathematics" must surely
merit extra credit on the Crackpot Index. Or should we limit the
number of items deserving of credit, lest this resemble those old
Usenet standbys, the Purity Test and the Star Trek Drinking Game?
--
Matt McIrvin, posting nonsense again
Mark Rosenfelder
I think any description of scientists in general as "atheistic" should be
worth 5 points, at least-- "atheistical", 10 points.
How about people who begin numbering lists with -1? Ha ha! Just kidding.
Mcinnes B T (Dr)
: hardcover.
:
: Here we have about 92 capitalized words apart from book titles.
: We have one claim to have revolutionized astronomy without good
: evidence:
:
: "THE UNIVERSE OF MOTION" contains FINAL SOLUTIONS to
: most ALL astrophysical mysteries.
:
: Minus the 5-point credit each post gets, this gives a 455-point crackpot index.
: However, we also have claims that BOTH relativity AND quantum mechanics are
: fundamentally wrong, for 20 points. (Indeed, a wholesale rejection of higher
: mathematics. This should perhaps count extra.)
No "perhaps"! This is one of the most characteristic signs. Of course,
this will lead to labelling as "crackpots" some of the most celebrated
professors at leading US universities. No bad thing, really.
John C. Baez
>I think that jb's otherwise praiseworthy index leaves out a few
>considerations:
>
>(1) misciting of physical principles should be worth quite a bit,
> especially:
> the laws of thermodynamics
> the observer effect and wave function collapse
> the big bang, etc.
>
>(2) quotes out of context, especially if reposted, are a real killer.
>
>(3) citing of myth as scientific fact superseding observation (see Ted
> Holden's postings on talk.origins; also compare Velikovsky and van
> Daniken) should also pile on the points.
>
>i leave it to the esteemed author of the index to assign points for these
>infractions.
I want the index to be easy to compute. In fact, what I'd really like
would be an index that could be computed automatically. Someone wrote
to me saying he might try to write a program that would catch some of
the more obvious signs of crankery. It would be charming if this
program could be used to automatically rate each article as it appeared,
someday (see above). Of course, many of my criteria would be very hard
to program in. Your criterion (1) would be much harder: people have
many legitimate disagreements as to "wave function collapse," and even
some of the sillier views are not indications of crackpottism. In
short, drawing the line is difficult here and I want something that
everyone with a crackpot index of less than 50 can agree upon. (2) is
also true and I think I know who you are referring to! This can be hard
to check sometimes, though. (3) is good and should be added to the
"science fiction" category.
Thomas Marlowe
considerations:
(1) misciting of physical principles should be worth quite a bit,
especially:
the laws of thermodynamics
the observer effect and wave function collapse
the big bang, etc.
(2) quotes out of context, especially if reposted, are a real killer.
(3) citing of myth as scientific fact superseding observation (see Ted
Holden's postings on talk.origins; also compare Velikovsky and van
Daniken) should also pile on the points.
i leave it to the esteemed author of the index to assign points for these
infractions.
(4) on the other hand,
capital letters should be permitted for section headers, as well as
for the keywords BIBLIOGRAPHY, REFERENCES, FOOTNOTES, and KEYWORDS.
(5) in fact, significant credit should be given for providing a
reasonable bibliography, complete citations, etc., or for responding
lucidly to criticism and corrections, for modifying claims in
response to discussion, etc.
tom marlowe
RVES...@vma.cc.nd.edu
the crackpot scale. for example:
I AM the GHOST of albert EINSTEIN and I am HERE to say that
I WAS WRONG!!!!!!!! RELATIVITY is WRONG!!!!!!!
should clearly rate higher on the crackpot scale than
I AM the GHOST of albert EINSTEIN and I am HERE to say that
I WAS WRONG! RELATIVITY is WRONG!
Cameron Randale Bass
>jb...@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>
>>would be an index that could be computed automatically.
>
>just such a program. My simplified rules are:
...
>2.14634 Paul Budnik
>2.56065 Steve Carlip
>3.18687 Benjamin Weiner
>3.81494 RING, DAVID WAYNE
>4.23726 Cameron Randale Bass
>5.13109 Douglas G. Danforth
>5.66667 Tom Van Flandern
>5.79702 Robert Firth
>6.61422 Leigh Palmer
>6.66667 Dr. Norman J. LaFave <laf...@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov>
>7.21700 Ric Peregrino
>7.60326 Mcirvin
>7.89399 Matt Austern
>8.72341 Bronis Vidugiris
>8.75751 Daryl McCullough
>9.08969 Hartmut Frommert
>9.80049 Jim Carr
>10.4906 John C. Baez
>10.5006 hporo...@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
>10.6189 Richard M. Mathews
>11.1111 sna...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
>11.8265 SCOTT I CHASE
>15.0000 Matthew P Wiener
>15.4365 Blair P. Houghton
>18.1966 Mcinnes B T (Dr)
>20.1698 Terry Bollinger
>25.6695 Jack Sarfatti
Obviously, word choice and simple syntactic considerations are not
sufficient to discern true crackpots.
dale bass
--
C. R. Bass cr...@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia (804) 924-7926
Richard M. Mathews
>I want the index to be easy to compute. In fact, what I'd really like
>would be an index that could be computed automatically.
Ask and ye shall receive. Just before reading your posting, I completed
just such a program. My simplified rules are:
100 points each for words in all caps. To count as a word, it
must include at least one consonant and one vowel (to avoid the
words "I" and "A" and to weed out many acronyms). It must also
include at least one letter which is not F A or Q. Digits and
'@' are treated as lower case letters to weed out login names,
host names, and more acronyms.
N consecutive exclamation points count for (N-1) * 100 points.
100 points for any word which includes a substring which matches
an entry in the word list which is at the top of the program (see
below). Comparisons are done ignoring case.
No negative base value is used on the theory that we must all have some
crackpot in us.
Lines beginning with '>' don't count. Lines in the article header don't
count except for "Subject:" and "Keywords:". Subject lines don't count
if the subject begins with "Re:".
The crackpot index is calculated by taking the score determined as above
and dividing by the number of lines examined. The program prints the
index followed by the name from the "From:" line.
I ran this program on every article in our sci.physics spool (about 2
weeks worth) and then averaged the indices for each author. The top 10
winners are:
63.0769 Joe Dellinger
64.7059 Khan
65 FRED W. BACH
73.3183 Alexander Abian
87.8875 mce...@cnsvax.uwec.edu
107.692 Dani Eder
113.755 John Hagerman
133.333 Scott Brigham, corp
182.353 <RVES...@vma.cc.nd.edu>
319.444 Brad Wallet
The prize for best crackpot spoof goes to Brad Wallet. Hagerman had a
chance at this prize, but blew it by submitting a couple serious articles.
Other sci.physics celebrities (defined loosely as those whose name I
recognized in a quick scan of the list) got the following scores:
There are a few scores which I am disappointed came out so low and a few
which I am disappointed came out so high. Overall, though, this seems
pretty good.
So here is the program. It reads a single article on standard input.
The shell script to pass each article through this program and to use
awk or some such tool to do the averaging is left as an exercise for
the reader.
/*
* crackpot.c written by Richard M. Mathews Richard...@West.Sun.COM
* version 0.9
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>
char *words[] = {
"conspiracy",
"status quo",
"communication",
"transmit",
"ftl",
"hawking",
"einstein",
"newton",
"galileo",
"penrose",
"physicists", /* as in "all them physicists are out to get me" */
"scientists",
"genius",
"super", /* superior and super-anything (incl. collider;-) */
"principle", /* just seems to be common in crackpot articles */
"b.s",
"m.a",
"ph.d",
"phd",
"dr.",
"provok", /* variants of provoke and provocation */
"provoc",
"arrow",
"according",
};
char *getline();
extern char *malloc(), *realloc();
char *name;
main(argc, argv)
int argc;
char **argv;
{
int nwords, i, lines = 0, score = 0;
char **ptrs;
int c;
int all_caps = 1, vowel = 0, consonant = 0, non_faq = 0, bang = 0;
int debug = 0;
while ((c = getopt(argc, argv, "d")) != -1) {
switch (c) {
case 'd':
++debug;
break;
default:
fprintf(stderr, "usage: crackpot [-d] < article\n");
exit(2);
}
}
nwords = sizeof(words) / sizeof(words[0]) - 1;
ptrs = (char **) malloc(nwords * sizeof(*ptrs));
if (ptrs == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Can't alloc word table\n");
exit(1);
}
for (i = 0; i < nwords; ++i)
ptrs[i] = words[i];
while ((c = nextchar()) != EOF) {
if (c == '\n')
++lines;
/*
* Check whether this character helps us advance our pointer
* into any of the words on the word list.
*/
for (i = 0; i < nwords; ++i) {
if (*ptrs[i] == c
|| isupper(c) && *ptrs[i] == tolower(c)) {
++ptrs[i];
if (*ptrs[i] == '\0') {
++score;
if (debug)
printf("%s\n", words[i]);
ptrs[i] = words[i];
}
}
else
ptrs[i] = words[i];
}
/*
* Check whether this word might be all caps (but it
* must contain at least one vowel and one consonant to
* count as a word). Mixtures of caps with digits are
* not counted as they are likely to be login names,
* acronyms, etc. Words connected with an '@' aren't
* counted as they are probably login or host names.
* Words made up only from the letters F A and Q are
* not counted.
*/
if (isalpha(c) || isdigit(c) || c == '@') {
if (isupper(c)) {
switch (c) {
case 'A':
case 'E':
case 'I':
case 'O':
case 'U':
++vowel;
break;
default:
++consonant;
break;
}
switch (c) {
case 'F':
case 'A':
case 'Q':
break;
default:
++non_faq;
}
}
else { /* lower case or digit or at-sign */
all_caps = 0;
}
}
else {
if (all_caps && vowel && consonant && non_faq) {
++score;
if (debug)
printf("CAPS\n");
}
all_caps = 1;
vowel = consonant = non_faq = 0;
}
/*
* Check for consecutive exclamation points.
*/
if (c == '!') {
if (bang) {
++score;
if (debug)
printf("bangs\n");
}
bang = 1;
}
else
bang = 0;
}
if (all_caps && vowel && consonant && non_faq) {
++score;
if (debug)
printf("CAPS\n");
}
printf("%f %s", lines ? 100. * score / lines : 0., name ? name : "");
exit(0);
}
nextchar()
{
static char *buf;
static body = 0; /* body of article? (as opposed to header) */
while (buf == NULL || *buf == '\0') {
buf = getline();
if (buf == NULL)
return EOF;
else if (*buf == '>') /* ignore included text */
buf = NULL;
else if (*buf == '\n') /* start of body */
body = 1;
else if (body)
;
else if (strncmp("Subject: Re:", buf, 12) == 0)
buf = NULL; /* ignore "Subject" on responses */
else if (strncmp("Subject: ", buf, 9) == 0)
; /* don't ignore "Subject" otherwise */
else if (strncmp("Keywords: ", buf, 10) == 0)
; /* don't ignore "Keywords" */
else { /* all other header lines */
if (strncmp("From: ", buf, 6) == 0) {
name = malloc(strlen(buf) - 5);
strcpy(name, buf + 6); /* remember name */
}
buf = NULL; /* ignore header lines */
}
}
return *buf++;
}
char *
getline()
{
static char *buf;
static int buflen;
char *bufp;
if (feof(stdin)) {
return NULL;
}
if (buf == NULL) {
buf = malloc(BUFSIZ);
if (buf == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Can't alloc line buffer\n");
exit(1);
}
buflen = BUFSIZ;
}
buf[buflen - 2] = '\0';
bufp = buf;
for (;;) {
if (fgets(bufp, BUFSIZ, stdin) == NULL) {
if (bufp == buf)
return NULL;
else
break;
}
if (buf[buflen - 2] != '\0' && buf[buflen - 2] != '\n') {
/* need to read more */
buf = realloc(buf, buflen + BUFSIZ - 1);
if (buf == NULL) {
fprintf(stderr, "Can't realloc line buffer\n");
exit(1);
}
bufp = buf + buflen - 1; /* point to the '\0' */
buflen += BUFSIZ - 1;
buf[buflen - 2] = '\0';
}
else
break;
}
return buf;
}
Tord G.M. Malmgren
>I think that jb's otherwise praiseworthy index leaves out a few
>considerations:
>(1) misciting of physical principles should be worth quite a bit,
> especially:
> the laws of thermodynamics
> the observer effect and wave function collapse
> the big bang, etc.
this leads to another typical crack-pot definition -- the mixture and
ill-definitions of variable. As an example, let the effect P=UI speaking
voltage and amperes here, and your general crack-pot'd take that and
equal to mv speaking mass and velocity, and claim that any vehicle that
gets a current of I and voltage of U will travel at speed "UI/m", or
mix that with preasure or any other entity stated in any handbook denoted
by the letter "p" -- big or small, doesn't matter....
---------------+--------------------------------
Tord Malmgren | InterNet: To...@VanA.PhySto.SE | These opinions are my OWN,
| BITNet : TordM@SESUF51 | and NOT of this department!
---------------+--------------------------------
Department of Physics, University of Stockholm
Matthew P Wiener
>15.0000 Matthew P Wiener
15.0000? An INTEGER to four SIGNIFICANT figures!?! I propose, to
PROPERLY calibrate all FUTURE crackpot indices, that WEEMBA be the
USENET equivalent of CARBON-12. Just as ONE atomic mass unit (amu)
is *exactly* 1/12 the mass of a CARBON-12 nucleus at STP, so TOO is
ONE usenet crackpot unit (ucu) *exactly* 1/15 the crackpottery of a
WEEMBA-15 posting at STP.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu) If Apple owned
NBC, they would sue Nike for comedy-interface copyright violation.
David Packer
What about those who become crackpots over time? should there
be a special weighted index based on mental collapse over time??
i.e.:
I've read about ALBERT einstein (capitalization, it's starting to happen)
weight 1.1
I'VE met ALBERT EinStien (increasingly worse)
weight 1.5
I AM albert EINSTEINs' GHOST I was Wrong about Relativity (gross neglect of
the brain during formidable years!!)
weight 2.0
I would imagine the program would have to keep a file of most common
abusers. As the index increased, so would the weight. This way just in
case someone like Hannu came back and said something normal(not likely),
then he would still score higher than if Dale had said something.
(maybe not?).
Dave Packer
Silicon Graphics Inc.
---
My opinions are mine,....I think?
"Imagination is more important than knowledge"
- Albert Einstein -
Simon Crouch
WHAT we REALLY NEED is some NOTION of......
oops, sorry, I got carried away there. Let's try again:
What we really need is some notion of "crackpot density" (CPD). It's one
thing to demolish(TM) western science in a long tedious spouting but another
thing entirely to manage it in one page! So, let's have these indices
normalised.
Oh, BTW, I've noticed that the maximum possible crackpot density (using
JB's definitions and a TOP SECRET normalisation procedure) is
(Pi/Fine Structure Constant)^(Feigenbaum's number)
Can I have my Nobel Prize now?
Richard M. Mathews
>> 113.755 John Hagerman
>> 133.333 Scott Brigham, corp
>> 182.353 <RVES...@vma.cc.nd.edu>
>> 319.444 Brad Wallet
>>
>> The prize for best crackpot spoof goes to Brad Wallet. Hagerman had a
>> chance at this prize, but blew it by submitting a couple serious articles.
>last few weeks, and that post fully included my post, but the left
>Character was not '>'. Computerization simplifies plagiarism! :-)
You're right. Brad is disqualified. As you keep up these serious posts,
I have to disqualify you too; so the prize now goes to RVESTERM@vma for
his posting illustrating the proper use of repeated exclamation points.
Now if you had properly claimed that PHYSICISTS have ignored your PROVOCATIVE PRINCIPLES and that my ARROW-neous award for Brad's COMMUNICATION was a CONSPIRACY by all SCIENTISTS to discredit your SUPER-GENIUS inspired by DR. PENROSE and maintain the STATUS QUO ACCORDING to DR. GALILEO, DR. NEWTON, DR. EINSTEIN, and DR. HAWKING, then I might have considered giving you the award!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!-)
Well, there goes my rating. (exactly 1000 for this article per my program)
Richard M. Mathews Richard...@West.Sun.COM Laisve!
Michael Robert Williams
How about a crackpot recognition manual? Every week or month, the top 20
crackpot indices could be posted in a sort of "Jane's Crackpot Digest"
format, and then we could write little routines to kill articles from
people who have a crackpot rating higher than our crackpot tolerance
threshold.
In Real Life:Mike Williams | Perpetual Grad Student
e-mail :mr...@virginia.edu| - It's not just a job, it's an indenture
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The probability of something happening is inversely proportional
to its desirability
Mcinnes B T (Dr)
: 2.14634 Paul Budnik
: 2.56065 Steve Carlip
: 3.18687 Benjamin Weiner
: 3.81494 RING, DAVID WAYNE
: 4.23726 Cameron Randale Bass
: 5.13109 Douglas G. Danforth
: 5.66667 Tom Van Flandern
: 5.79702 Robert Firth
: 6.61422 Leigh Palmer
: 6.66667 Dr. Norman J. LaFave <laf...@ial4.jsc.nasa.gov>
: 7.21700 Ric Peregrino
: 7.60326 Mcirvin
: 7.89399 Matt Austern
: 8.72341 Bronis Vidugiris
: 8.75751 Daryl McCullough
: 9.08969 Hartmut Frommert
: 9.80049 Jim Carr
: 10.4906 John C. Baez
I think I belong right here.
: 10.5006 hporo...@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
: 10.6189 Richard M. Mathews
: 11.1111 sna...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
: 11.8265 SCOTT I CHASE
: 15.0000 Matthew P Wiener
: 15.4365 Blair P. Houghton
: 18.1966 Mcinnes B T (Dr)
: 20.1698 Terry Bollinger
: 25.6695 Jack Sarfatti
:
: There are a few scores which I am disappointed came out so low and a few
: which I am disappointed came out so high. Overall, though, this seems
: pretty good.
:
: "dr.",
Not fair! Not all of us can control the way our names are posted!
Mcinnes B T (Dr)
: "fancy mathematics" myself I fear I am hopelessly biased. Many good
: physicists, including Feynman, Phil Morrison and Steve Weinberg, have at
: times expressed their disdain for mathematics that is too "fancy". I have
: always regarded this as childishness comparable to the mathematicians'
: occaisional cracks at physics. In Feynman's case it may have been due
: to his constant striving to avoid seeming like a nerd (though at Los
: Alamos the guy took the CRC handbook to breakfast and did a few of the
: integrasl each day!). Folks like Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Lagrange,
: Laplace, the Bernoullis, Fourier, Euler, Gauss, Dirac and Heisenberg
: were above this bickering.
:
You have to consider that, every so often, a crackpot will get lucky and
turn out to be right. You also have to take into account the unfortunate
fact that obnoxious neurotics like Feynman can still be good physicists.
When Feynman spoke about things outside his direct area of competence,
he *was* a crackpot.
:
John Flanagan
>> "nuclear" physics, general relativity, relativistic mass
>To recall, the crackpot index is presently given as follows.
What about the gratuitous use of quotation marks? Should be worth at
least 5 points, if not 10.
--John
--
John Flanagan ||"Pretty boys
jo...@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu || with the sunshine faces
U. of Hawaii, Dept. of Physics & Astro.|| <mumble mumble>..."
2505 Correa Rd., Honolulu, HI 96822 || -- My Bloody Valentine
RING, DAVID WAYNE
>When Feynman spoke about things outside his direct area of competence,
>he *was* a crackpot.
Can you give us some good examples?
Dave Ring
dwr...@zeus.tamu.edu
J. D. McDonald
>Dave Ring
>dwr...@zeus.tamu.edu
I can give a counterexample: O-rings. I **am** an O-ring expert and he
got it right.
Doug McDonald
Cameron Randale Bass
Apparently, he was fed information about O-rings by people who had
rather Feynman do it than themselves.
SCOTT I CHASE
I just returned from a weekend away from sci.physics to find your very
amusing C program for calculating the Crackpot Index. Nice job, but -
>10.5006 hporo...@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
>10.6189 Richard M. Mathews
>11.1111 sna...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
>11.8265 SCOTT I CHASE
Worse than snarfy AND Hannu? Are you sure?
I think that your algorithm must be intrinsically flawed. :=)
-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase "It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SIC...@CSA2.LBL.GOV although I have no right to say so, having
been a single cell so long ago myself that I
have no memory at all of that stage of my
life." - Lewis Thomas
Paul Johnson
>When Feynman spoke about things outside his direct area of competence,
>he *was* a crackpot.
I dunno. I read his talk on education and the problems in it (cargo
cult science), and it seemed pretty sensible to me.
Paul.
--
Paul Johnson (p...@gec-mrc.co.uk). | Tel: +44 245 73331 ext 3245
--------------------------------------------+----------------------------------
These ideas and others like them can be had | GEC-Marconi Research is not
for $0.02 each from any reputable idealist. | responsible for my opinions
Richard M. Mathews
>> 20.1698 Terry Bollinger [second from the bottom of the "notables" list]
>Alright, I'm genuinely baffled. Have I overlooked a rule or something, or
>do I use a lot more caps than I thought (or a lot more double exclamations?)
You definitely got hit by one posting with 56 words in caps. Those
section headers killed you. A serious flaw with my program. Maybe I
shouldn't count a line which is 100% caps and punctuation (except to
count exclamation points)?
>I know I do use a lot of *italics* that should count the same as caps, but
>I couldn't find any such equivalence in the rules.
I use the *italics* method myself which may account for why I didn't
include it in the index;-)
sic...@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
>>10.5006 hporo...@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
>>10.6189 Richard M. Mathews
>>11.1111 sna...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
>>11.8265 SCOTT I CHASE
>Worse than snarfy AND Hannu? Are you sure?
>I think that your algorithm must be intrinsically flawed. :=)
It is flawed. For one thing, you sign your name in all caps. I put
in the rule about treating digits and @ as lower case letters largely
to reduce the damaged caused by your signature (in other words I confess
that I fudged the data by adjusting the rules to fit the model I wanted!).
I also invented the F A and Q rule for your benefit. In the end, I just
couldn't overcome the scores you got on some short but sweet messages
such as "READ THE FAQ!" and your TOP 10 THINGS PHYSICISTS DO. You also
got hit hard on a short response to "RING, DAVID WAYNE". Somehow those
attribution lines have to be ignored (perhaps any line which ends with
"writes:").
Of course, the reality is that this was a fun project; but it isn't worth
an update.
Richard M. Mathews Lietuva laisva = Free Lithuania
Brivu Latviju = Free Latvia
Richard...@West.Sun.COM Eesti vabaks = Free Estonia
WE DID IT!!!
Terry Bollinger
te...@aslws01.asl.dl.nec.com (Terry Bollinger) writes:
> Throw *all* the rascals out, I say, and not just the crackpots!
>
> I am referring, of course, to the Deadbeat Physicist Index, which I will
> describe tomorrow in another email.
Hate to disappoint ya'll (+ myself, since I love taking a hack now and then
at a little bit of satire), but my discretion has gotten the better of me.
However innocently done, the conversion of Dr. Baez's idea into a wildly
careless and indifferent program is not really all that hot of an idea.
Applying the program to a few hundred entries from around the world and
then broadcasting the results under the heading "crackpot" is a *reeeeal*
bad idea, at least from a libel and liability perspective. About the last
thing I care to do is prompt someone to write another program to do the
same thing for a Deadbeat Physicist Index. (I know a little a bit about
this by virtue of coming from a family of mostly lawyers -- how's *that*
for an ugly confession?)
Good luck, ya'll, but as for me I'm permantently killing any more threads
that even mention words like "crack" (or maybe even just the word "index").
Cheers,
Terry Bollinger,
A Rampant Capitalizer of Section Headers
who is speaking only for myself!
Frederick W. Chapman
(Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes:
>You have to consider that, every so often, a crackpot will get lucky and
>turn out to be right.
The above strikes me as a backwards way of describing what, in all
likelihood, actually happens:
Every so often, the research community comes to its senses and
realizes that someone they had dismissed as a "crackpot" was actually
right all along!
So show some respect for these mislabeled psycho-ceramics, will ya?
--
o ------------------------------------------------------------------------- o
| Frederick W. Chapman, User Services, Computing Center, Lehigh University |
| Campus Phone: 8-3218 Preferred E-mail Address: fc...@Lehigh.Edu |
| "The day after yesterday is the second-to-last day before |
| the rest of your life the day after tomorrow." |
o ------------------------------------------------------------------------- o
kekaminsky
Gregory McColm
>: integrasl each day!). Folks like Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Lagrange,
>: Laplace, the Bernoullis, Fourier, Euler, Gauss, Dirac and Heisenberg
>: were above this bickering.
>:
>You have to consider that, every so often, a crackpot will get lucky and
>turn out to be right. You also have to take into account the unfortunate
>
Newton definitely was NOT above this kind of bickering, although
he pretended to. Liebniz's defense was that he was acting in
self-defense. The Bernoullis also provided considerable
entertainment. Gauss was too arrogant to bicker. There is a
myth that the truly great people are more mature than the rest
of us. That is not true.
Which reminds me. An awful lot of cranks (De Maillot, De Vries,
Berkeley, Bolzano, etc, etc) have turned out to be right. In
fact, God being just, a lot of the truly great mature types
have turned out to be wrong (classic case: Lord Kelvin on
practically any subject). Respectability is a poor indicator
of being right. And now for my daily gram of Vitamin C ...
-----Greg McColm
Blair P. Houghton
>10.4906 John C. Baez
>10.5006 hporo...@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
>10.6189 Richard M. Mathews
>11.1111 sna...@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
>11.8265 SCOTT I CHASE
>15.0000 Matthew P Wiener
>15.4365 Blair P. Houghton
>18.1966 Mcinnes B T (Dr)
>20.1698 Terry Bollinger
>25.6695 Jack Sarfatti
>
>There are a few scores which I am disappointed came out so low and a few
>which I am disappointed came out so high. Overall, though, this seems
>pretty good.
Unfortunately, your program fails to account for SARCASM!!!!
and thus inflates the scores of facetious bastards such as I.
--Blair
"Am."