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user-inactivated · 4303 days ago · link · · parent · post: Is institutionalized learning an anachronism? Yes. Keep moving, hubski.
Underwood Dudley wrote several books about cranks in mathematics. Their prevalence is one of the reasons we don't have many contributions from amateurs in mathematics anymore, despite being a discipline with a history of important contributions from amateurs; so many mathematicians get letters giving oddball and fallacious proofs of statements already proven to be false that amateurs are just assumed to be cranks. Dudley's books are still encumbered, but libgen has them. Here's De Morgan's much less sympathetic study of 19th century cranks.