John Baez Calls Lee Smolin, Kaku, Brian Greene, and Lisa Randall Crackpots

[astro]

Here is Baez's crackpot index--and Smolin, Greene's, Kaku's, Hawking's, and Lisa Randall's research in persepctive:
math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
The Crackpot Index

John Baez



A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:

1. A -5 point starting credit.

5 POINTS FOR ALL OF THEM!!



2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.

1 POINT FOR ALL OF THEM! ST WITH ITS MANY, MANY, MANY, MULTIPLE, VARIABLE DIMENSIONS!

3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.

2 POINTS FOR ALL OF THEM! ST GOES ON AND ON ABOUT CURLED UP TINY DIMENSIONS--EINSTEIN REVOKED THESE!

1. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.

3 POINTS FOR ALL OF THEM!

1. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.

5 POINTS FOR ALL OF THEM! HIGHER, TINY DIMENSIONS HAVE NEVER BEEN FOUND!

1. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
2. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).
3. 5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
4. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

SMOLIN TALKS ABOUT THIS!

1. 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.

SMOLIN, GREENE, RANDALL, KAKU, ALL TALK ABOUT THIS!

1. 
   
   10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.

SMOLIN, GREENE, RANDALL, AND KAKU ALL TALK ABOUT THIS!

1. 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
2. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.
3. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.

M THEORY, WARPED PASSAGES, LOOP QUANTUM GRAVITY, HIGHER DIMENSIONS, WORMHOLES, BRANES, STRINGS, MBRANES

1. 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".

THEY ALL ARE WAITING FOR SOEONE TO FIGURE IT OUT, PROVIDE THE EQUATIONS, aND THEN THEY WILL SAY, AHHHH--THT IS STRNG THEORY/LQG!!!

1. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.

THEY ALL THINK THEY CAN IMPORVE UPON GR & QM & SR & QFT.

1. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".

THEY ALL THINK THEY CAN PROVIDE THE MECHANISM AS TO THE "WHY."

1. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

LEE SMOLIN TALKS ABOUT THE BLOCK UNIVERSE & FROZEN TIME, SAYING GR & SR ARE MISSING SOMETHING--10 POINTS!

1. 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".

10 POINTS FOR ALL THE ST/LQGERS!!

1. 20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index. (E.g., saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.)
2. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.
3. 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
4. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.

DID YOU SEE BRIAN GREENE'S PBS SERIES--THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE? TIME WARPS! WORMHOLES! TINY DIMENSIONS!! WARPED PASSAGES!!

1. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
2. 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)

HAWKING RADIATION! THE GREENE EQUATION! THE SMOLIN POSTULATE!

1. 20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.

SEE THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE, THREE ROADS TO QUANTUM GRAVITY, ETC.

1. 
   
   20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
2. 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
3. 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)
4. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.

SEE LQG/ST/ THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE.

1. 
   
   30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
2. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.
3. 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
4. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.

LQG!!

1. 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
2. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
3. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.

ST, LQG!!!!

So it is that Lee Smolin, Brian Greene, and Lisa Randall are off of Baez's Crackpot scale. math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

Penrose's twistor theory would set a new record.