From: loveluck@gr.osf.org (James Loveluck)
Subject: Crackpot index and new groups
Keywords: crackpot, GUT, relativity, tachyon
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 09:25:06 GMT

The Crackpot Index proposal from John Baez has led me to develop a  
Brilliant New Theory (I'm sure its worth a Nobel prize! - in my acceptance  
speech I'll be sure to cite John as a source of inspiration). 

First some background ...

Recently, there have been two apparently unrelated threads in this  
newsgroup:

o The Crackpot Index thread which I've already referred to

o A discussion (not the first!) on whether/how this newsgroup could be
  split up, which came to the rather depressing conclusion that there was
  no satisfactory method, since it would require separating articles into
  "crackpot" and "non-crackpot" categories, and the crackpots would
  inevitably invade both. 

[One could argue that there is a third relevant thread, if you could call  
it that, consisting of the crackpot articles themselves; however, since  
this is a steady stream, it constitutes something like background  
radiation from the Big Bang, and can safely be ignored for the present -  
but see below!]

Now My Great Universal Theory (MyGUT) would resolve these two issues (and
probably a number of related problems) at a stroke! Here's how it works.
All we have to do is to automate John's algorith for calculating the  
Crackpot Index (CI); then we write a bit of software which implements a  
Crackpot Filter (CF); this can be added to the news software (its just a  
Simple Matter of Programming) to provide a system for automatically  
filtering out articles above a certain value of the CI - in fact, one  
could define one's own Personal Crackpot Threshold (PCT). Filtered  
articles could be directed to /dev/null, returned to the submitter with an  
appropriate message, or spun off into hyperspace (we'll need to hire a few  
grad students to work on these details).

Obviously, a corollary is that one could develop an Inverse Crackpot  
Filter (ICF) which would accept crackpot articles and reject the others;  
this would be invaluable for crackpots who don't want to clutter up their  
news system with confusing articles based on fact.

Now before someone start whining about "real scientific theories have to
make predictions", here is my first prediction for MyGUT:

Use of the CF will reduce the number of crackpot articles by:

        oo - p = R

Here p is the PCT and R is the reduction factor.
The oo is meant to be the infinity sign, this comes from the infinite
cosmic background of crackpot articles; however, since we showed above  
that this can be renormalised to 1, we arrive at the equation:

        R = 1 - 43

where I have substituted p=43, which is the value I have calculated
for my own PCT. Thus, we arrive at the remarkable result:

        R = -42

[I may have got a sign wrong in this result, but I've a feeling that its  
just a matter of a sign convention. Also, I think I may have to throw in  
an h-bar (Planck's constant) somewhere, when I take into account quantum  
effects; however, the rest is just history.]

Well, I'll have to stop here, because I want to go back to working out  
some extensions of the theory - I don't think I'll have too much  
difficulty extending it to encompass general relativity, and the idea of  
renormalising the background crackpot radiation is an obvious basis for  
HEP; then there are those thingies which go faster than light (causality  
and so on), and I expect black holes will just drop out ...

James

PS Obviously the whole article should have been in capital letters, in  
view of its importance, but the shift lock key is broken on my keyboard,  
and my fingers get tired holding down the shift key. I hope that I can be  
credited with the extra points nevertheless.

Newsgroups: sci.physics