# Jack Sarfatti **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 31, 2000, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-sarfatti/47914 "2000-12-31T18:03:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![curwin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@curwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curwin)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2000, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-sarfatti/47914/1 "2000-12-31T18:03:35Z")
Have any of you ever heard of this guy? He is supposed to be a very smart physicist, is all over the web, and actually was my physics teacher (in a class of 5) in 12th grade. He was very into time travel, and even told us that the character of Doc Brown in Back to the Future was modeled after him. (He actually does look like the character). He has all sorts of ideas about time travel - something I know very little about and am not very interested in. But since he was my teacher, I would like to know if I can go around saying he knew/knows what he’s talking about. Anyone more familiar? ---
**Author:** ![douglips](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@douglips](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/douglips)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2000, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jack-sarfatti/47914/2 "2000-12-31T19:47:02Z")
Of course I’ve heard of him! [He’s a Net.Legend!](http://www.suslik.org/Humour/Computer/Internet/nl1.html#sarfatti) He’s definitely not a crackpot in the classic sense (compare [Hannu Poropudas](http://www.suslik.org/Humour/Computer/Internet/nl1.html#hannu), [Ludwig Plutonium](http://www.suslik.org/Humour/Computer/Internet/nl1.html#plutonium)) but has funky ideas. I used to find his posts on sci.physics interesting in 1989 or so, but I haven’t run across him too much since then. I think he had something to do with a space propulsion idea-bank (couldn’t tell you how crackpot or not the organization was - it’s been too long) [http://www.stardrive.org](http://www.stardrive.org) Anyway, I’d say he’s one step beyond. Does that mean he’s ahead of his time or just a loony? Only time will tell. At least he’s not [Abian](http://www.suslik.org/Humour/Computer/Internet/nl1.html#abian). I used to fight him tooth and nail before I learned to detach from crackpots. I remember Abian’s one-trick pony trick was “Time has inertia”. he never gave any details beyond that, so I asked him to start from his “Time has inertia” postulate and calculate the distance a ball thrown at a certain angle and speed would travel. He replied “well, I can’t go into all the details here, but I’d say it’d be about 320.23 meters.” which was of course the exact right answer. I **knew** he had use Newton’s equations to figure it out, and so I just got more frustrated that he wouldn’t show his “work”. I finally had to give up on him. But I digress. I have many fond memories of Sarfatti, even though I haven’t read sci.\* for almost 10 years.