Wikipedia Page for "Crackpot Index"

I was inspired by a recent e-mail sent to me (and, apparently, many other Oxford academics) to look up the Wikipedia page for Crackpot Index. Under its "See also" section is a link to the Wikipedia page for List of amateur mathematicians. That's not nice!

Jackpot!

I think for this one the simplest thing to do is just to repost my newest Facebook status update word-for-word:

Mason Porter just received a letter by snail mail, sent personally to him (not a mail merge), addressed to "Sr. Prof. Mason A. Porter". Somewhat intrigued, he opened the letter. Inside were the secrets to nuclear fusion, and apparently his recent expository article on the history of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem was the final piece to the puzzle.

There's nothing else that needs to be said.

How to get high impact factors

I'm a little bit late to the game of finding out about this one, but it's pretty "awesome" and it's in my home discipline, so I'll report it now.

There is a nonlinear dynamics journal called Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals which is (shall we say) craptacular that for some reason seems to have abnormally high impact factors when compared to the other, significantly better, journals in the field. If I consider specialized journals only (so I'm throwing out anything like Nature or even PRL), there are easily half a dozen and most likely more than a dozen such journals in this area to which I would submit my stuff before I would send it to CSF. It's not even on my radar as somewhere I would bother to send it, so I always found it strange that its impact factor was so high. Everybody in the field knew it was crap, so who was citing its articles?

While of course this could have been discovered earlier (which begs the question: Why wasn't it?), it turns out that the excessive impact factor comes from a metric fuck ton of self-citations by the Editor-in-Chief, who was using this journal as a venue to publish more than 300 single-authored papers during the last 15 years. Now the Editor-in-Chief is being forced to retire. There are apparently also significant questions about his academic credentials. D'oh!

The wheels of justice may turn excruciating slowly, but they often turn nonetheless...

Finally, whoever is policing this stuff might also want to check out a few other journals that come to mind...

(Tip of the hat to Radek Erban.)


Quick Update: Here is a an entire blog that devotes itself to compiling some of the self-promotion coming from the "retiring" Editor-in-Chief. At a glance it looks pretty comical, so now I'm going to read it a bit more closely...

Tales from the arXiv: Quantum Robot edition

\\
arXiv:0812.4614
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:31:05 GMT (161kb)

Title: I, Quantum Robot
Authors: Paola Zizzi
Categories: quant-ph
Comments: 12 pages
\\
Quantum robots, defined as mobile quantum systems with an on-board quantum computer and any needed ancillary systems, interact with other quantum systems which are part of the environment. The logic which describes quantum robots is not orthodox quantum logic, but a deductive calculus which reproduces the quantum tasks (computational processes, and actions) taking into account quantum superposition and quantum entanglement. The logical object-language cannot be viewed as the reflection of the usual classical metalanguage: a quantum metalanguage is needed. Quantum robots can, in principle, become aware of the environment, take decisions, and make experiments. In principle, quantum robots can become intelligent machines. In this case, it is believed they might learn much faster than classical machines, because of quantum speed-up. Then, quantum robots, once they will be built, might result to be those hyper-intelligent machines which will lead to the so-called technological singularity. Such a singularity might be dangerous if quantum robots become self-aware and take advantage on humans. To avoid such a problem, it would be useful to adopt a quantum metalanguage to control quantum robots in a dialectic way, that is, without lowering their capabilities by quantum measurements. A physical implementation of a quantum metalanguage might be the use of coherent states in brain signals. In this way the external agent virtually acts as he
was in a composite quantum system together with the quantum robot. This is the quantum version of non-invasive BCI (Brain-Computer Interface). In this case the observer can be considered internal by the use of a quantum metalanguage, resulting in an obviously conscious Quantum Brain-Computer.

\\ ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.4614 , 161kb)


Or maybe this should be called the spooooooky robot edition? (Actually, some of the papers by this author that he cited in the bibliography seem legitimate even though this paper seems strange.)

|Tales from the arXiv: Entropy and Truth?

Here's a nice bit of psychoceramics that was just posted on the arXiv:

arXiv:0807.4337
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:58:10 GMT (5kb)

Title: Interaction between Truth and Belief as the key to entropy and other
quantities of statistical physics
Authors: Flemming Topsoe
Categories: math-ph math.MP
Comments: announcement
MSC-class: 94A17
\\
The notion of entropy penetrates much of science. A key feature of the
all-important notion of Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon entropy is its extensivity
(additivity over independent subsystems). However, there is a need for other
quantities. In statistical physics a parameterized family of non-extensive
entropy measures, now mainly known under the name of Tsallis-entropies, have
received much attention but also been met with criticism due mainly to a lack
of convincing interpretations. Based on the hypothesis that interaction between
Truth, held by ``Nature'', and Belief, as expressed by man, may take place,
classical- as well as non-classical measures of entropy and other essential
quantities are derived. The approach aims at providing a genuine
interpretation, rather than relying either on analogies based on formal
mathematical manipulations or else - more fruitfully, but not satisfactory - on
axiomatic characterizations.
\\ ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.4337 , 5kb)


The thing that amuses me is that the abstract seems reasonable and straight-laced at first. The author discusses the need for other quantities (which is fine, in principle), and then comes the zinger sentence that he/she derives them based on some garbage that I can't even parse. Next up: some thermodynamic quantities based on "Justice" and the Anerican Way. O, Superman! (OK, so this Bowie reference was gratuitous.)

Tales from the arXiv: nuclear war edition

In case you missed it, here is today's psychoceramics lesson:

arXiv:0801.1694 (*cross-listing*)
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:23:53 GMT (835kb)

Title: Cheap Method for Shielding a City from Rocket and Nuclear Warhead
Impacts
Authors: Alexander Bolonkin
Categories: physics.gen-ph physics.soc-ph
Comments: 31 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables
\\
The author suggests a cheap closed AB-Dome which protects the densely
populated cities from nuclear, chemical, biological weapon (bombs) delivered by
warheads, strategic missiles, rockets, and various incarnations of aviation
technology. The offered AB-Dome is also very useful in peacetime because it
shields a city from exterior weather and creates a fine climate within the
AB-Dome. The hemispherical AB-Dome is the inflatable, thin transparent film,
located at altitude up to as much as 15 km, which converts the city into a
closed-loop system. The film may be armored the stones which destroy the
rockets and nuclear warhead. AB-Dome protects the city in case the World
nuclear war and total poisoning the Earth atmosphere by radioactive fallout
(gases and dust). Construction of the AB-Dome is easy; the enclosure film is
spread upon the ground, the air pump is turned on, and the cover rises to its
planned altitude and supported by a small air over-pressure. The offered method
is cheaper by thousand times than protection of city by current anti-rocket
systems. The AB-Dome may be also used (height up to 15 and more kilometers) for
TV, communication, telescope, long distance location, tourism, high placed
windmills (energy), illumination and entertainments. The author developed
theory of AB-Dome, made estimation, computation and computed a typical project.
Discussion and results are in the end of article.
\\ ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1694 , 835kb)


You know what's really cool, however? We can use these domes for tourism!

Anyway, I'll remain quite skeptical of this project until I see some experimental results...

For those familiar with the APS March Meeting, note that this article was filed under "general physics."

The Calculus of Religion

I mean this literally. Take a look at this notice that one of my friends (Arcane Gazebo) found on the windshield of his car yesterday.

Conservapedia

Here is the straight line; you provide the joke:

Gazebo reports on a project called Conservapedia, which is supposed to be the Conservatives' answer to the "liberally-biased" Wikipedia.

You can read what Gazebo (and the people to whom he linked) wrote about this. I think the only reaction I want to add is Sighhhhhhhhhhhh....

Tales from the arXiv: Endorsement Edition

We take this break from mathematics with a special news bulletin.

I am listed on the arXiv as somebody who can endorse articles in my areas of expertise. If somebody who can't post an article on the arXiv (due to not having posted before), they can request somebody (such as me) to endorse them so that they can henceforth upload papers. (The arXiv first instituted this a couple years ago because a lot of garbage was getting posted. Now, only a small amount of garbage -- though still plenty of research of questionable quality [which in most contexts I would still refer to as 'garbage'] -- gets posted.) In practice, only a couple people have asked me to endorse them. I am not expect to review papers, but I am supposed to look them over to make sure they're legit. (I can also endorse based on the author's credentials if I want.)

Yesterday, I was asked to endorse a paper. I (obviously) can't include the author's name and I don't feel comfortable providing a link, so let me restrict myself to the abstract:

The author offers a new method for re-writing the human brain on electronic chips. This method allows for the modeling of a human soul in order to achieve immortality. This method does not damage the brain but works to extend and enhance it.


I responded with the following e-mail:

[Name],

This article is very far outside my area of expertise, so it would not be proper for me to endorse it.

Also, I'm not really sure who else to suggest, as I don't know any scientists who work in this area.

Good luck,

Mason