Physics paper guessing game: Are you worse than a monkey?

D H

The concept of the game: You are presented with the titles of two papers. One paper is a real one posted at the arXiv. The other is fake, with the title automatically generated using a context-free grammar. Your job: Guess which is the real paper. After guessing you will be presented with another pair of titles. You can play as long as you want. The game will give you a ranking based on your ability to ferret out the real physics papers versus the fake ones. Do slightly worse than 50% and you are ranked "worse than a monkey". Dropping down even lower makes you a "ninth year graduate student". Do well and you will rise to the rank of "undergraduate" and may eventually achieve the rank of "Nobel prize winner".

Here is the website: http://snarxiv.org/vs-arxiv/.

Doc Al

You made my day. (And I'm pretty good at picking the 'winners', apparently. Racked up a Nobel prize. )

JaredJames

I'm an undergraduate.

Well at least I'm at the right level for my current education status.

FlexGunship

Woah... I'm stumped by my first one. I feel like an idiot! This game is awesome.

Vanadium 50

I went 10 for 10, but I had read 4 of the real papers so I am not so sure it counts.

FlexGunship

I was 6 for 6... then 6 for 7... then 6 for 8... then 6 for 9... then 6 for 10...

Then I just started clicking the left side each time.

Now I'm 16 for 22?

CompuChip

I got to 7 out of 7 just clicking the right side without even reading the title, suspect it might be slightly biased :).

JaredJames

Got to love it, I just kept clicking right this time and got "Ed, is that you?" 10 out of 10.

D H

I just tried the "click right scheme" and got some hilarious ratings.

0 out of 5: Guess harder.
1 out of 6: Crackpot.
2 out of 7: LHC doomsayer.
2 out of 8: Nice round number.
3 out of 9: Worse than a monkey.
3 out of 10: Try using AdS/CFT.
12 out of 30: 9th year graduate student.