Physics Forums Crackpot Index - Comments

[Drakkith]

The occupation of ridiculing IMO is an occupation of arrogance.

Arrogance: offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.

In view of this definition, I'm afraid I can't agree with you.

 

[Enigman]

Arrogance: offensive display of superiority¹ or self-importance; overbearing pride.

In view of this definition, I'm afraid I can't agree with you.

Ridicule: Words or actions intended to evoke contemptuous² laughter at or feelings toward a person or thing.
² Contempt:The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior¹, base, or worthless; scorn.
¹ Inferior: Antonym of superior.

If that doesn't convince then as I said with respect to another point- we have to agree to differ.
I am tired of this argument now, I will not budge from my sense of proprieties and neither will you. The discussion now has come to a point that in my humble opinion it can not be concluded without someone withdrawing. And hence I do so. There is work to be done and I have delayed them long enough.
My best Regards.

 

[Crake]

Alright. I think I win this game:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/home-quantum-energy-generator

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Alright. I think I win this game:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/home-quantum-energy-generator

And he has collected $16k. Crackpottery pays.

 

[DennisN]

And he has collected $16k. Crackpottery pays.

Yes, obviously it can pay.

 

[Akaisora]

Alright. I think I win this game:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/home-quantum-energy-generator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHEBd_igOGs&feature=player_detailpage#t=18

Almost as good as the keshe reactor guy.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

Crackpot doesn't hold water, what little water it may hold are usually dried up by empirical evidences and/or mathematical proof.

But what if the radical remarks happened to came from Michio Kaku? BBC quoted him about the "higgs boson caused the big bang"... is that 50 points in the index or what? Sean Carroll and Matt Strassler disagreed and refuted Kaku on their separate blog. It was going to be a lopsided discussion without Kaku to defend himself so even I don't understand the higgs mechanism myself, I defended Kaku especially from the morons and sycophants.

 

[Akaisora]

Crackpot doesn't hold water, what little water it may hold are usually dried up by empirical evidences and/or mathematical proof.

But what if the radical remarks happened to came from Michio Kaku? BBC quoted him about the "higgs boson caused the big bang"... is that 50 points in the index or what? Sean Carroll and Matt Strassler disagreed and refuted Kaku on their separate blog. It was going to be a lopsided discussion without Kaku to defend himself so even I don't understand the higgs mechanism myself, I defended Kaku especially from the morons and sycophants.

Leonard susskind published a paper to refute kaku's claims about worm holes and time travel.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

It was CBS News not BBC...

Thanks for the info about susskind vs. kaku, I'll read about it later.
Btw, is Miles Mathis a crackpot? I find his radical view of physics intriguing and thought provoking... and I refuted his thoughts about the big bang that was cited in a thread.

 

[Borg]

This thread gives a good example of the futility of attempting to educate someone who refuses to be educated - 1.5 Times the Speed of Light.

At the time, I had been re-reading relativity theory and felt informed enough to contribute. Many people tried over the course of 13 pages to get the OP to see the error of his ways but nothing would sway him from his initial belief that someone was traveling at 1.5 times the speed of light - even when he was presented with his own statements that contridicted his belief! After the thread was locked, he PM'd me to continue the discussion but I chose not to discuss it further as I didn't believe that anything would change.

 

[Bandersnatch]

That was fun to read.

I know it might seem a bit overlong for a casual bookworm, but the key is to imagine it being a hip-hop song.

There's a strongly-defined rythm, you see, with the perpetrator repeating the same arguments in nice, regular intervals. He's the chorus here, providing emotionally punctuated counterpoints to other members' rapping their souls away.

Story-wise, the protagonist is the martial hero reaffirming his resolve over and over again, like Leonidas choosing to defend his doomed position despite insurmountable odds.
The Persians attack in billions upon billions of stanzas, with frontal assaults and sneaky attacks to the rear. Their name is legion and though they have no pity they try to seduce the hero away from his post.

The general structure of the lyrics is interesting too, with a strong beginning setting up the stakes, very level action throughout the 2/3rds of the running time - toned down as if intentionally refusing to advance the plot. Then there's an elated, almost climactic development around page #10, where the protagonist seems to give up under the relentless assault, only to triumphantly return to his duty as the eternal guardian in a surprise twist, somewhere in the vicinity of post #200.
In the closing lines the Persians claim victory, even as the protagonist stands undefeated among the corpses of argumentation.

Of course, it could have been better. The protagonist could have asserted his martyrdom in persecution by the Gilliamesque behemoth of the Establishment. He could have called upon gods of physics to stand by his side and guide his spear-hand. All those would, likely, increase the immediate consummability of the thread, but at the risk of forcing the story to seek premature conclusion.

All in all, a tour de force and a credit to all involved.




Jokes aside, I think this one could have been saved. The huge volume and very short timespan in which the thread reached the conclusion worked against the purpose of education. It takes time to relfect upon what you're told, especially if the beliefs are held very strongly. The amount of responses in such a short time simply turned the defence mechanisms on, forcing the man to blankly repeat his arguments.

Perhaps if the forum members were less eager to correct the errors of his ways, he'd get there. In time.

 

[ZapperZ]

Now that it has quiet down a bit, I'll go all out and blast out the crackpots that come into this forum for a set of characteristics that aren't covered in the list, and something that hasn't been talked about.

1. They are liars and have no integrity. Why? They come here and explicitly agreed to abide by the PF Rules. But then, they turn around a break those rules. So they lied. Their agreement means nothing. This then makes everything they claim questionable. Why would you believe anything from them if their words can't be trusted?

2. They can't read and/or can't comprehend. They may have read the PF Rules, but they didn't understand what they've agreed to (don't laughed. I've seen this excuse being used!). So if they can't understand something as simple as our rules, what are the odds they can understand the physics that they were tackling? Again, it raises questions of what they are able to comprehend. Why would anyone listen or pay attention to someone like that?

3. They have no intention to respect anything, and don't care. This is easy. You show no respect, you get no respect. If you do not care about how we do business here, why should we care about what you have to say? Tit for tat.

Zz.

 

[DennisN]

It's hard to argue against that, ZapperZ.

And I've found out that it can be dangerous to follow the Crackpot road.

 

[Hornbein]

Are there any female crackpots? I've never encountered one.

 

[Ibix]

I've come across one pseudo-physicist who claimed to be female. A fair few "alternative medicine" practitioners are female - I think they count.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Are there any female crackpots? I've never encountered one.

I've met many. The ones that stand out in my memory had a prior emotional allegiance to some new age, paranormal, or religious belief that stood in the way of them putting much effort into appreciating science.

 

[OmCheeto]

Now that it has quiet down a bit, I'll go all out and blast out the crackpots that come into this forum for a set of characteristics that aren't covered in the list, and something that hasn't been talked about.

1. They are liars and have no integrity. Why? They come here and explicitly agreed to abide by the PF Rules. But then, they turn around a break those rules. So they lied. Their agreement means nothing. This then makes everything they claim questionable. Why would you believe anything from them if their words can't be trusted?

2. They can't read and/or can't comprehend. They may have read the PF Rules, but they didn't understand what they've agreed to (don't laughed. I've seen this excuse being used!). So if they can't understand something as simple as our rules, what are the odds they can understand the physics that they were tackling? Again, it raises questions of what they are able to comprehend. Why would anyone listen or pay attention to someone like that?

3. They have no intention to respect anything, and don't care. This is easy. You show no respect, you get no respect. If you do not care about how we do business here, why should we care about what you have to say? Tit for tat.

Zz.

Thank you ZZ. That reminded me of a CPP from a while back.

I did experiments this morning, confirming that my invention is 99.95 efficient.

----------------------------
+/- 2 or 3 orders of magnitude.

 

[strangerep]

2. They can't read and/or can't comprehend. They may have read the PF Rules, but they didn't understand what they've agreed to (don't laughed. I've seen this excuse being used!).

I'm pretty sure they can read and comprehend ok. They just don't really agree with the rules. It's a bit like various criminal behaviours. E.g., a guy knows it's a crime to have sex with an underage child, but goes ahead and does it anyway because society's "rules" don't align with his own need for gratification...

 

[Drakkith]

In this day and age it can be very difficult to sort the cracked pots from the ones that are merely dirtied from use. As such, I have come up with the following rule that should make it much easier for the layman to find the cracks.

Did whatever you read or heard present its arguments in a clear, concise manner and make near-perfect sense even though you've never studied science before? Yes? It's a crackpot.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

Some rebels intrigue me and provoke my thoughts but since they are not on the mainstream they must be disregarded. They write well, I might grade their articles A for clarity, coherence, and cadence but then the contents are questionable.

Btw, I like conciseness especially when it's correct. Somebody put in a nutshell the Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics and quoted "Boson clump, Fermion repel", I'm impressed that I wrote a haiku.. the quantum of poetry :D

"Bedlam in hadron
Boson clump, Fermion repel
Profound existence."

 

[ZapperZ]

I'm pretty sure they can read and comprehend ok. They just don't really agree with the rules. It's a bit like various criminal behaviours. E.g., a guy knows it's a crime to have sex with an underage child, but goes ahead and does it anyway because society's "rules" don't align with his own need for gratification...

I covered that in #3.

Zz.

 

[ComplexVar89]

5 points: Uses http://vixra.org or similar reference

I had the misfortune of stumbling upon that website recently. Let's just say I made a hasty exit, because I didn't know whether to laugh, to pity those posting there, or if I would end up throwing my laptop across the room in frustration.

I sent a link from there to my best friend, and she laughed her rear-end off.