I was mulling over the phenomenon of negative temperature. Given the
statistical mechanical definition of temperature

1/T = dS/dE,

a system in which increase in energy results in _decrease_ in entropy has a
negative absolute temperature.

Trivia Quiz: Most people reading this post are probably sitting within a
meter of a common technological artifact that operates at negative
temperature. What is it?

It is a peculiar fact that many of the worst crackpots in this newsgroup are
actually quite well educated and have studied the subjects in which they
exercise crankhood for many years.

With the majority of people, the more they study, the better the grasp they
have on the subject they are attempting to master.

With crackpots, however, the more they study, the more perverted their
theories become.

Our intuitive understanding of an intelligent person is one who is able to
quickly learn a subject. If G is grasp of a subject and E is effort spent in
learning, then the intelligence of a person, I, might reasonably be
expressed by the formula

I = dG/dE

This formula fits quite well our intuitive understanding of intelligence. A
highly intelligent person can achieve a high grasp of a subject with little
effort, while an unintelligent person requires considerably greater effort
to achieve understanding.

A crackpot, however, seems to grasp a subject less and less the more he
learns. Since dG/dE is negative in such cases, crackpots can legitimately be
considered to have negative intelligence.

Minor Crank