The Success Formula for Crackpot Ideas

Ten years ago, I received my first crackpot email. It began innocuously enough:

“Dear Professor Ferrie, Recently, I proposed to a number of physicists that there is incompatibility between the magnetic component of the Lorentz force law, (F=qvB), and Einsteinian Relativity (ER). I illustrated this with the scenario of two point charges traveling at the same velocity, alone in the universe…”

What followed was a sprawling argument filled with technical-sounding terminology, examples from classical electromagnetism, and critiques of mainstream physics. It wove through Einstein’s relativity and Maxwell’s equations and culminated in the proposal of a new theory — the Pressure Of The Universe (POTU). The author, signing the email as John Best, confidently dismissed established scientific principles and concluded with a critique of the scientific community's failure to see the “obvious” flaws in modern physics.

Today, a quick search for “John Best” and “POTU” reveals that his once-grander claims have fizzled. His original website, once brimming with half-baked scientific “proof,” now redirects to a scam gambling site based in Indonesia. In short, his “revolutionary” idea sank without a trace.

Yet, not all crackpots fade into internet oblivion. Some turn their fringe notions into global debates, push their…