If there's one archetype that haunts math forums, it has to be the Retired Engineer that took a look at the Collatz conjecture or the Reimann Zeta zeroes and just came up with a theory.

This also happens in physics, but physics crackpots can come from anywhere. Especially now, having been reassured that they've hit the key insight, and you're absolutely right, it's not just a theory of everything — it's a revolutionary new foundation for physics! Would you like me to help you write a convincing paper delving more into these ideas?

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sevensor 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

My favorite physics crank was the guy who convinced himself that curves don’t exist; they’re merely lots of line segments pasted together. He proceeded to derive a whole lot of remarkable nonsense about astrodynamics, and maybe relativity? It’s been a while.

	▲	naasking a day ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe ironically, the idea that curves don't exist hasn't gone away, it's still a serious idea: spacetime could be discrete, in which case curves really are a series of discrete line segments. Loop quantum gravity is one such theory, and I would hardly say it's crackpot physics.

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bsoles a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Or the medical doctor who invented Riemann integral in 2000s and actually published a paper in a medical(?) journal. It was hilarious.