In the past contest I have found flaws and errors in ~ 20 essays, including leading essays. However, in this contest'2012 I decided not to judge any essays because Brendan recommended avoiding the judgment atmosphere. Nevertheless, since Dr. Crowell estimates my essay, I also have the right to estimate his essay.
I saw Dr. Crowell's essay; it is a collection of statements copied from textbooks and Internet. For example 'The acceleration is directly proportional to a force applied to it. The momentum of a body is its mass times its velocity p = mv as determined by an inertial observer' - It is the statements copied from a textbook. Or another proposition: "D-branes are composed of strings in a way similar to a Fermi-electron surface in a crystal'. It is a statement copied from brane theory I repeat, it is not the copy/paste operation because he changes the words, but he copies the sense of statements. In the same way, I can show that the most part of his essay repeats the generally known information. Of course, it is not simply the copy/paste operation because the words are changed.
Dr. Crowell simply republish the generally known information in order to fill his essay. Yes, maybe he changes the words, but actually it is the generally known information from textbooks. Does such essay-story that repeats the generally known information deserve any prize? I can produce 10 such essays-stories during a week.
Let I illustrate how to prepare quickly an essay using the Crowell's method. For example, first I'll copy the fragments of text from academic papers about Lorentz symmetry, Heisenberg uncertainty, GR, Feynman diagrams. Then I change the words and formulae, and the new essay is ready for publication! Pay attention that it is not a copy/paste because I changed the words! Therefore the essay appears to be 'original' whereas it actually repeats the accepted physics.
For example, Crowell wrote: 'The coupling constant G of general relativity (GR) with units of area, or G1=2 with units of inverse mass, while quantum field theories (QFT's) are unitless coupling constants in naturalized units'.
You see, it is simply a story that repeats GR and other theories using other words. The contribution of Crowell is simply that he RETELLS the accepted physics (even if he copies the SENSE but not copy/paste).
It is very difficult to create an original research with Unique information, but it is very easy to create the simple stories about generally known information like Crowell's essay. I propose to eliminate all such stories from contest because it is a fraud only; In such a way professionals make money.
Sincerely,
Constantin