Definition:Crackpot

Definition
In all fields of scientific endeavour, you will encounter enthusiastic amateurs: those with a fascination for the subject but for whom a rigorous (and rigidified) course of academic study does not (for whatever reason) intersect their world line. To them, the beauty of the world of nature fills them with a passion to participate in the glorious search for truth.

For many of these, their lack of facility with the scientific method is no barrier. It is not a hindrance to their work that the only place they are searching for that truth is inside their heads. And because truth is beauty, it therefore stands to reason that beauty is truth. If a model is beautiful, then it must be a model of reality.

See Aristotle for an example.

The same is true in mathematics. There is much in mathematics which is beautiful, elegant and profound. Therefore there is a tendency for some thinkers to come to the conclusion that, because a particular statement expresses a belief that is in itself more than mildly striking and unusual, then it must be true.

See Pythagoras for an example.

In some cases, such statements are true. But, not having been introduced to the traditions of the subject, these enthusiastic amateurs are not in a position to realise that they may well not have been the first to come up with such a truth, and in fact that truth is just one humdrum instance of a wilder, freer, more exciting vista of delight that they can not yet begin to dream of.

Certain of these enthusiastic amateurs are so overwhelmed by delight at their ideas, they spend the entirety of their energies trying to persuade others of the supposed truth of their beliefs. Very occasionally, the idea does indeed turn out to be a truth, and the thinker is thereby vindicated. Alarmingly, ridiculously and heartbreaking often, however, it turns out that the idea is in fact completely untrue (the usual technical terms being: rubbish, codswallop, baloney, poppycock and various other abstruse words), and in these cases, the thinker in question is usually referred to as a crackpot.