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I noticed this Famous MO Question. Its title is: "Difference between Principal Component Analysis(PCA) and Singular Value Decomposition(SVD)?."

It has zero votes, but is one of the most "famous" MO questions—nearly 4-yrs old. Anyone want to conjecture how such a question became "famous"? And whether the "famous" criteria are reasonable?

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    $\begingroup$ "Famous" means "10000 views by anybody" -- the vast majority of these views can be by people who have nothing to do with MathOverflow. Thus the quickest way to get a question "famous" in the sense of the badge is to post the link in some place where LOTS of people see it, and to use a text for the link which makes average people curious. Perhaps this has happened here. $\endgroup$
    – Stefan Kohl Mod
    Commented Jan 27, 2015 at 23:57
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    $\begingroup$ "famous" could also mean "viral", as in the perfect billiards break posted some months ago. I imagine the present question ranks high on certain web searches. $\endgroup$
    – The Masked Avenger
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 0:04
  • $\begingroup$ @StefanKohl: By anybody, or anybody with an MO account? (Which does not undermine your point...) $\endgroup$
    – Joseph O'Rourke
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 0:08
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    $\begingroup$ @JosephO'Rourke: I think anybody on the internet. $\endgroup$
    – Stefan Kohl Mod
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 0:21
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    $\begingroup$ Google seems to like Stack Exchange, and that's a very good page title for capturing people with that sort of question. $\endgroup$
    – Ben Barber
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 11:54
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    $\begingroup$ The math.SE duplicate of this question has over 45,000 views by now. Compare and contrast. $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 21:35

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It's a famous question of climate science deniers. They want the "hockey stick" to be broken. Alas, math won't help them, for it has been independently reproduced by a multitude of methods relying on a multitude of data. It is the paradigmatic showcase of the late Homo S Sapiens being epistemologically challenged.

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