This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Czj (talk | contribs) at 05:41, 23 November 2006 (Revert to revision 88968827 dated 2006-11-20 07:16:04 by 24.68.249.80 using popups). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 05:41, 23 November 2006 by Czj (talk | contribs) (Revert to revision 88968827 dated 2006-11-20 07:16:04 by 24.68.249.80 using popups)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The crackpot index is a number that rates scientific claims or the individuals that make them, in conjunction with a method for computing that number. The method, proposed (most likely as a joke) by mathematical physicist John Baez in 1992, computes an index by responses to a list of 34 questions, each positive response contributing a point value ranging from 1 to 50. The computation is initialized with a value of −5.
Presumably any positive value of the index indicates crankiness.
Though the index was not proposed as a serious method, it nevertheless has often been cited in discussions of whether a claim or an individual is cranky, particularly in physics.
See also
External links
- The crackpot index questionnaire
- Crank Dot Net, a site listing hundreds of websites considered to be "cranky" by its proprietor, roughly organized by subject area
- A similar proposal for rejecting crackpot email anti-spam technologies, presented as a tick-box form