Talk:Bogdanov affair/Archive 2

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Consensus?

I believe CatherineV has a suggested replacement on the article. YBM wants a couple of links added to it... I doubt there's a problem with that. However, it seems as though the Bogdanoffs have not commented on the article yet. Igor, what is your opinion on the article?

-- EE Guy

Dear EE Guy,

I have no problem with the replacement of the article as suggest by Catherine V (including the links proposed by YBM). I have just added a few little words that I underline in the following version :

"During 1999-2002, popular French TV presenters Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff obtained two theses (one in mathematics, one in theoretical physics) from the University of Bourgogne. From this work, they published six papers in refereed physics and mathematics journals, including "Annals of Physics" and "Classical and Quantum Gravity." After reading the abstracts of both theses, French physicist Max Niedermaier considered them to be an incoherent stream of physics buzzwords, masquerading as pseudoscience under a layer of dense technical jargon, similar to the Sokal Affair. On 22 October 2002, Mr Niedermaier subsequently sent an email to this effect to various physicists. An eventual recipient of this email, the American physicist John Baez, created a discussion on Usenet (Science Physics Research) entitled, "Has physics been bitten by a Reverse Sokal Hoax?" This question immediately attracted worldwide attention, both in the physics community as well as the international popular press. Upon learning that the Bogdanoffs disputed that their work was a hoax, Mr Niedermaier issued a private and public apology to the Bogdanoffs on 24 October and the brothers have continued to defend their theories (which deal with quantum groups, KMS theory, and topological field theory in view to propose for the first time a theoretical model suitable for describe what occured before the BIg Bang). After passionate debates and discussions on the Internet, there is no clear consensus about the technical merits of the Bogdanoffs' work. Some claim it to be a hoax, others claim it to be sloppy work simply plagued by errors, while some theoretical-physics researchers think highly of their theories.

It should be emphasized that the Bogdanoffs adamantly defend their work as genuine. The general topic of "before the Big Bang" is a complicated field and their work purports to present forward-looking theories.

In 2004 they published a highly successful popular-science French-language book "Avant Le Big-Bang" ("Before the Big Bang"), based on a simplified version of their theses, where they presented their own approach amongst other cosmological models. In the framework of a short weekly television program, created by the Bogdanoffs in 2002, a 90-minute cosmology special broadcast went on the air on French channel France 2 in August 2004. Both the book and television show have been criticized for scientific inaccuracies, while others admire the Bogdanoffs' ability to bring the subjects of cosmology and relativity to a wider audience.

I think inserting "refereed" into the article is important... Good suggestion. However, I would suggest rewording the second change: "... in view to propose for the first time a theoretical model suitable for describe what occured before the BIg Bang." In every research field that I have dabbled in, the phrase "for the first time" always causes an argument. Could I therefore suggest "... to propose a novel theory for describing what occured before the Big Bang)."?

-- EE Guy

if you insert "refereed" in the article, you have to add as well that most journals published public apologies to have published the papers. you have to add as well that the papers are almost identical, what is not considered as a fair practice. What they propose is not even a model since the math part is flawed and only linked to the so-called "physical" part by a weak metaphor (and some nonsense). "some theoretical-physics researchers think highly of their theories" does not apply to Motls' statement : first one physicist is not "some", and "think highly" is not accurate (just read his blog). They are many, many other problem with the last proposed version, I have no time at the moment to point out. --YBM 05:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Regarding "some theoretical-physics researchers think highly of their theories" does not apply to Motls' statement : first one physicist is not "some", perhaps we could rephrase as follows : "some scientists think highly of their theories" as the more neutral title would include other supporters such as Jadczyk or Petit (I'm afraid I don't know their fields of expertise and whether they are theoretical-physicists or not) ? CatherineV 09:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

This article is not about topology

... therefore, may I ask that it be removed from Category:Topology? Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov 21:51, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

_______

I do agree with this remark. Topological field theory (which is one of the theoretical physics theories we apply to our model) does not have anything to do with topology.

Igor

---

Dear EE Guy,

Yes, no problem about your proposal : "... to propose a novel theory for describing what occured before the Big Bang)."?

Now regarding the last reaction of YBM, let me answer phrase per phrase :

1. YBM writes : "if you insert "refereed" in the article, you have to add as well that most journals published public apologies to have published the papers."

My comment : wrong. We published 6 papers in 6 different refereed journals. There was only one "non official" text issued by Andrew Wray, Editor of Classical&Quantum Gravity and Herman Nicolai, honorary Editor, in response to a question addressed by the mathematician Greg Kupperberg. In the hart of the storm raised by the mail of Niedermaier, the objective of this statement was to calm the discussions. Nothing more. This statement was never published in the journal and was intented to be only a simple non official email.

And as far as the other journals are concerned, in spite of all the discussions, none of them issued any "apologies" after publication of our paper. There was only one telephone interview given to the Chronicle of Higher Education by Mr. Wilczek who had recently joined the journal and did not handle our paper (which was in fact accepted by Roman Jackiw, one of the most reputed theoretical physicists at MIT). John Baez writes on his site that Mr Wilczek decline to issue any official comment on our paper. All what we could read was some internet copies of his interview given to the Chronicle of Higher Education regarding the necessity to raise the standards of publication in Annals of Physics. Therefore, what writes YBM is wrong.

2. YBM writes : "...you have to add as well that the papers are almost identical, what is not considered as a fair practice."

My comment : wrong. The paper published in "Classical & Quantum Gravity" has nothing to do with the papers published in "Czechoslovac Journal of Physics". As these papers have no similarities with the ones published in "Annals of Physics". One can only find some similar approach between the "Nuovo Cimento" paper, the "Chinese Annals of Mathematics" paper and the "Chinese Journal of Physics" paper. Why? simply because in each of these papers we develope our KMS interpretation of the fluctuation of the metric at the Planck scale from a different perspective. The paper is more mathematecized in "Chinese Annals of Mathematics" and more "physical" in "Nuovo Cimento" or "Chinese Journal of Physics" . Nothing unfair with that.

3. YBM writes : "What they propose is not even a model since the math part is flawed and only linked to the so-called "physical" part by a weak metaphor (and some nonsense)"

My comment : wrong. YBM is not a specialist of quantum groups. He cannot issue any credible statement about the mathematics of our thesis that he did not read nor understood. In his report after defense and revision of the thesis, the mathematician Prof. Majid (Cambridge) writes : "The basic theme is to mix algebraic structures associated to the Euclidean and the Lorentzian signatures into single algebraic constructions. Bogdanoff identifies this as constructing certain cocycle Hopf algebras of a type not seen before. These cocycle bicrossproduct results in section 3.3 form a body of original work which could certainly be the basis of a published research paper”(rapp 26 janv 2000).

In his report after defense and revision of the thesis, the mathematician, specialist of quantum groups, Prof. Gurevich (Univ. Valenciennes) writes : En particulier, l’auteur a construit dans un important théorème de la section 3.3 la forme générale d’un produit bicroisé cocyclique d’un genre nouveau. Cette construction générale lui a permis de réaliser un produit bicroisé “twist” (au sens de Drinfeld) entre les structures d’algèbres de Hopf Lorentziennes et Euclidiennes. Cette construction a été inspirée par l’idée de l’auteur d’unifier les signatures Lorentziennes et Euclidiennes au sein d’une structure de groupe quantique unique. Incontestablement, l’auteur apporte ici une intéressante contribution théorique.” (rapp 26 janv 2000).

And as far as the "physical motivations" of our thesis are concerned, In his report after defense and revision of the thesis, the theoretical physicist Prof. Kounnas (ENS/CERN) writes : “Mon rôle a consisté à examiner l’intérêt physique des conjectures de Mr Bogdanoff ainsi que de garantir la nature correcte des raisonnements impliqués (...) A mon avis, les deux conjectures formulées par G.Bogdanoff sont bien fondées, exposant des idées nouvelles qui ont des implications plausibles en cosmologie et dans d’autres phénomènes gravitationnels, tels que les trous noirs, les whorm holes, etc. Au terme de ma lecture de la partie conjecturale en physique j’ai pu constater que l’exposé ne contient pas de remarques incorrectes. ” (rapp 26 janv 2000).

In his report before defense of the thesis, the theoretical physicist Prof. Jackiw (MIT) writes : “The author proposes a novel, speculative solution to the problem of the pre-Big-Bang initial singularity, which cannot be analyzed within conventional fields theory. His suggestion is that that (inaccessible) epoch is governed by a topological, thermal field theory, satisfying a KMS-periodicity condition. In order to make his ideas concrete, the author makes various startling, but technical proposals, which reflect vividly the originality of his thinking.(...) The author’s unconventional idea is that at high temperature the Yang Mills system fluctuates into the suppressed fourth dimension, taking on time-like and/or space-like values.” (rep 11/04/02)

These are only a few examples. All in all, we got 15 reports about our thesis before and after defense. We believe that the higly reputed mathematicians and physicist who issued official statements about our work are more credible than Mr YBM statement about our so called "flawed maths part" and "weak methaphor".

4. YBM writes : "some theoretical-physics researchers think highly of their theories" does not apply to Motls' statement..."

My comment : Yes in many ways, it does. Even if Prof Motl is (which is absolutly normal when you have a "tenure" in Harvard University) quite prudent in his analysis of our work, he writes : " In 2005 it seems pretty clear that the Bogdanoff brothers, although they may be viewed as physics outsiders, honestly tried to study physics and propose and realize an interesting idea and the paper in CQG was also a result of many months of interactions with many physicists who tried to cure the problems of the previous versions of Bogdanoffs' paper."

Futher in his article, Motl writes : "Moreover, I really think that they ask many important questions and propose intriguing possible answers. Although they were apparently considered to be weak students, their quality of choosing rather important questions and attach conceivably relevant jargon and formulae could be compared with the quality of some papers written by pretty well-known physicists. Therefore it does not surprise me much that Roman Jackiw said that the paper satisfied everything he expects from an acceptable paper - the knowledge of the jargon and some degree of original ideas. (And be sure that Jackiw, Kounnas, and Majid were not the only ones with this kind of a conclusion.)"

Further, Motl writes : "Do you think that the signature of spacetime may fluctuate? In what sense can the geometries with different signature (or complex geometries) contribute to the path integral? Is the supershort regime of quantum gravity inherently topological so that the continuous degrees of freedom disappear? I think that these are important questions that may eventually become meaningful, and I also think that such an observation about a paper is usually enough for most of us to justify a paper with some proposed answers to these questions."

Further, Motl writes : "They even define what the right observables should be - and in my opinion, this is one of the punch lines that shows that they're either pretty smart or someone helped them: the observables are replaced by homology cycles on the moduli space of gravitational instantons; are you sure that this won't be the ingenious final explanation of the origin time in the geometric language that we will understand in 2030? I am not sure - it could well be an extension of the ideas of quantum foam from topological string theory."

So in spite of YBM writes, yes Motl "think highly" about our work  : not because it is "ours" or because it is perfect (it is not), but because it may contain exciting ideas about planckian physics and quantum field theory. That's all.

5. YBM writes : "...first one physicist is not "some...").

My comment : Wrong. There are many physicists who think highly about our capacity to propose "some possible answers to unexplored questions". Here are some names : Arkadiusz Jadczyk (theoretical physicist), Roman Jackiw (theoretical physicist), Jac Verbaarshot (theoretical physicist), Jean Pierre Petit (theoretical physicist), Andre Lichnerowicz (mathematician), etc. As Motl wrote : "Therefore it does not surprise me much that Roman Jackiw said that the paper satisfied everything he expects from an acceptable paper - the knowledge of the jargon and some degree of original ideas. (And be sure that Jackiw, Kounnas, and Majid were not the only ones with this kind of a conclusion.)".

6. YBM writes : "They are many, many other problem with the last proposed version, I have no time at the moment to point out."

My comment : If YBM "has no time at the moment to point out all the many, many problems of the proposed last version" then why does he bother to mention them? More seriously, we think that we reached a sort of "consensus" about the last proposal of the article (except I would not phrase, as suggested by Catherine, ""some scientists think highly of their theories" - which is a bit vague- but "some theoretical physicists think highly of their theories" because it is a precise fact -all our "supporters" are theoretical physicists- and is is only on the basis of a precise expertise in our field that these physicists would understand and support our work).

Thank you for your attention,

Igor

I wasn't sure of the fact myself, which is why I went for the neutral, vague and boring option. But "theoretical physicists" definitely has a better ring to it. Raising my hand for approval. CatherineV 13:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I found your first post about the scientists involved interesting (quite different kind of people : Motls - and not "Motl" - did Igor take the "s" as a plural and began to think that there is a group of people called "Motl" ? - Petit and Jadzcick cannot be put in the same bag : they don't have the same kind of credibility : Motls looks ok and consider I&G work as rubbish even if some basic ideas could vaguely be interesting, Petit wrote books about the way extraterrestrial creatures communicated with him for years and Jadzcick is involved in a cult about communication with the future of humanity by mean of oui-ja boards). What you wrote then, after Igor posted his usual unauthorized out-of-context selected copies of thesis reports is a regression, you're far better when you try to think by yourself. --YBM 00:19, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

C'me on, why are you narrowing people down to that kind of popular trivia ? You know, as well as I do, that Petit and Jadczyk are worth a lot more than that. You're far better when you try to open your mind CatherineV 09:17, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Links to the papers are included on Baez's site... an interested reader can determine for themselves how different they are and take note of editorial-board statements. My line about researchers thinking highly of their theories will contain a link to Motl's blog (at the request of Igor). Wiki readers are free to make up their own minds about what Motl thinks of their work.

If I had a Web page describing the subject, would it read similarly to what I propose on Wiki? Not even close. But the Wiki article is about presenting facts, not opinion.

-- EE Guy

I support this line : facts, only facts, not opinion. --YBM 00:19, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I would still like to hear what are the "many, many other problem with the last proposed version" so that we can fix the problems. Please be as specific as possible.

-- EE Guy

A couple of questions

1. Are you guys ready for the article to be unprotected?
2. I've archived this page down to the section "Consensus?", here's the archive link. Does anyone object? The move can easily be reverted, if desired. Bishonen | talk 02:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Good idea about the archives. Now, about question n°1. When you say "unprotected", does it mean that the page is going to be completely unsupervised and open to all for further editing ? Experience has shown that we (ie all the people, on both sides, who have been involved in this affair for months) cannot be trusted when it comes to writing a common neutral text (beautiful oxymoron) when left to our own devices. I have a feeling it won't take long before this article becomes a favorite undisciplined playground once you, teachers, have left. Is there a wiki-procedure for this - surely this is not the first time this happens, is it ? CatherineV 09:08, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Tips for showing who's saying what on the page

Tips on formatting posts:

1. When replying to someone else, please indent your own post in such a way that it's distinguished from the other person's. One colon at the head of a paragraph indents one step, two colons indent two steps, etc.
2. Please sign all your posts. Typing four tildes, ~~~~, will create a signature automagically. It works with IP numbers too, you don't have to be logged in to do it. (Although certainly this page would be easier to follow if everybody did create an account and use it.)
3. If possible, try to avoid breaking up another person's posts with interleaved comments, as this breaks off parts of his/her post from the signature and can create confusion. But if you do need to interleave, please try to help the reader by indenting and signing all your paragraphs, as above. If nobody objects, I'll try to look in and format the dialogue now and then, as some newish users may find the code confusing. Bishonen | talk 07:29, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Discussion continued

Excuse me Mr Bogdanov, but you call this a "simple non official email" ?

(...)

Classical and Quantum Gravity and the paper "Topological theory of the initial singularity of spacetime" by G Bogdanoff and I Bogdanoff, Class. Quant. Grav. 18 4341-4372 (2001)

A number of our readers have contacted us regarding the above paper and in response we have decided to issue the following statement.

Classical and Quantum Gravity endeavours to publish original research of the highest calibre on gravitational physics. It is not possible for the Editorial Board to consider every article submitted and so, in common with many journals, we consult among a worldwide pool of over 1000 referees asking two independent experts to review each paper. Regrettably, despite the best efforts, the refereeing process cannot be 100% effective. Thus the paper "Topological theory of the initial singularity of spacetime" by G Bogdanoff and I Bogdanoff, Classical and Quantum Gravity 18 4341-4372 (2001) made it through the review process even though, in retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal.

The journal's Editorial Board became aware of this situation already in April 2002. The paper was discussed extensively at the annual Editorial Board meeting in September 2002, and there was general agreement that it should not have been published. Since then several steps have been taken to further improve the peer review process in order to improve the quality assessment on articles submitted to the journal and reduce the likelihood that this could happen again. However, there are at this time no plans to withdraw the article. Rather, the journal publishes refereed Comments and Replies by readers and authors as a means to comment on and correct mistakes in published material.

We are also grateful to our readers, contributors and reviewers for their vigilance and assistance both before and after publication.

Dr Andrew Wray Senior Publisher Classical and Quantum Gravity Institute of Physics Publishing

Professor Hermann Nicolai Honorary Editor Classical and Quantum Gravity Albert Einstein Institute

(...)"

I understand you disagree with that statement, but don't deny its importance.

Why are u keep on quoting Shan Majid ?

He had explicitly said that he considers you and your brother as weak students(whith a high degree of motivation). He also says that one must read reports between the lines (what is not written is as much important as what is not).

Moreover i do know that report is always positive in french universities.

And your whole works has 3 citations only. Wich indeed is highly poor.

Ok Bishonen,i'll take your tips into account and sorry for the "mess".

Regards

--62.62.171.40 09:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

__________________________________________________________________________

I answer to the above anonymus comment coming from France.

When you write (about CQG statement) : I understand you disagree with that statement, but don't deny its importance.

I certainely do not deny it. However, I think I have a better knowledge of the whole "affair" than you do. Before such statement was issued I personally had a few conversations with various members of Classical&Quatum Gravity. As I wrote yesterday, this statement was issued to calm the frenetic discussions induced by Niedermaier's hoax. In this context, it was an unavoidable action. Such a statement would have never been issued if Niedermaier had not created this artificial "crisis" about our work. This is the reason why CQG editorial board decided to issue this email which, I insist on this point, was never published in the journal itself. This is precisly why I wrote that it was not an "official" statement.

When you write (about Majid) : :Why are u keep on quoting Shan Majid ?.

The answer is simple : because he knows our work better than anyone. What he said about us ("a report should be read between the lines", etc) in his interview in a french journal was said only because he was furious that his report was published in a best seller book (Before the Big Bang) without his authorisation.

But beyond this, throughout the years, Majid got a deep comprehension of our work in quantum groups and knows exactly what we did. When he wrote : " "The basic theme is to mix algebraic structures associated to the Euclidean and the Lorentzian signatures into single algebraic constructions. Bogdanoff identifies this as constructing certain cocycle Hopf algebras of a type not seen before. These cocycle bicrossproduct results in section 3.3 form a body of original work which could certainly be the basis of a published research paper” Majid expressed 2 things :

1. That we constructed a cocycle Hopf algebras of a type not seen before

2. That it could certainly be the basis of a published research paper

This is why I quote Majid.

Igor

Mr Bogdanov,

Thanks for replying,but there're still some points that i just can't buy.

It's about the "CQG statement". It's just sounds like a conspiracy theory :

Because of a mail, researchers believed that some papers from 2 phd are part of a hoax. Ok, that's a fact.

Dropping eyes on the papers, no one was able to find something relevant out. There again, nothing but fact.

Become alarmed of this "affair", the editorial board of CQG issue a statement to apologize for having published one of your paper.

Why no one at CQG had defend this paper against the critics ?

It's was infinitely better for them to find something interesting in your paper than to recognize the failure of their referee process.

According to you, every single paper can be repudiated only because it's targeted as a nonsense paper!

About Majid,you say that he bumped you off, only because you had published a report !!! Here is another conspiracy theory.

I do wonder if you believe in your own words...

If you're honest, you would better change your explanations, they are sinking you.

Regards

L.A.

--81.185.39.60 16:05, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm unprotecting the article now

Hi, CatherineV, thanks for your comment above about my proposed unprotection. Don't sell yourselves short! I see lots of constructive discussion on this page now. The article was protected because of edit warring, but it really shouldn't be kept protected. Open for editing by all is the wiki principle, and editing by consensus worked out on the talk page usually does work, even where the opposed opinions are as strong as here. Note that the basic wiki rule of NPOV doesn't mean the article is supposed to be something in between, it means that all POVs must be represented (and all of them neutrally reported) in it. It can take a while to get the hang of it. I'll keep a lookout for renewed edit warring, and you're very welcome to drop a note on my talk page (see the talk link in my sig) if you see a problem I can help with. If you think I'm part of the problem, there are 500 other admins here. The quickest way of getting help from an admin who's active and online is via #Wikipedia. Please note also that experienced non-admins can often help equally well; the only things they can't do is protect, unprotect and block, violent methods that shouldn't be resorted to in a hurry anyway.
A contributor to the talk page who was being disruptive has been blocked for a week. She'll have a fair chance to take part when her block is released, but I won't hesitate to re-block quickly if the behavior is resumed.

Thank you for your answer ; I'll definitely keep you posted if need be. I've modified the article in keeping with the "consensus" text we wrote here. I don't know how to "wikify" it, though. CatherineV 18:23, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

The 3 Revert Rule: everybody please read this

To revert more than three times in 24 hours is a blockable offense, see WP:3RR, but this rule does NOT mean it's OK to revert three times a day. The best way is not to revert at all. Edit the other person's additions rather than revert them, and discuss your changes on Talk. Especially try to avoid reverting a revert. Please consider discussing a voluntary agreement to not revert more than once a day, compare WP:HEC. Bishonen | talk 17:00, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

___________________________________________________________________

Discussion continues

Dear L.A.

Thank you for having taken the time to post this comment. Once more, I will answer you as carefully as possible.

You wrote : "Dropping eyes on the papers, no one was able to find something relevant out. There again, nothing but fact. "

I am sorry, but it not a fact. Several mathematicians and theoretical physicists expressed their interest for our ideas, papers, part of papers, etc, but their voices were flooded in the surrounding noise. Here are some examples, among others, of these researchers who did not follow the herd :

1. On october 2002, the theoretical physicist Massimo Porrati, professor of physics at New York University took position against John Baez statement about our work :

"The comment of that John Baez is also pretty lousy. He seems to find particularly funny the statement that a topological theory does not depend on L. Well, unfortunately, that is what happens in Witten's theory of Donaldson Polynomials (topological N=2 or N=4 SYM). That theory can be though of as the gauge-fixed version of L=0. All its nontrivial features come from the Gribov ambiguity of the gauge fixing."

2. On November 22,2002, a graduate physicist, Fabio Toscano, wrote us the following :

With your consent, I would like to include the interview in an article I'm writing for the Italian magazine "Sapere": it is a popular scientific magazine, whose editor is Carlo Bernardini, an Italian physicist who is very interested (like me) in your work. "Sapere" is a bimonthly magazine, so my article will be published next January.

I'd like to add a couple of things. Even with due caution, my article will certainly take your side. No doubt: I didn't appreciate Dr. Baez's and others' behaviour in this story. Even if I have a university degree in theoretical physics, I don't feel competent to say if your work is good or not, but I'm sure it deserves, at least, attention, meditation and, above all, respect. Personally, I find your ideas very intriguing. This is also, maybe you like to know, Prof. Luciano Bonora's opinion. Prof. Bonora is an execellent theoretical physicist from SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies, in Trieste) and he finds your theories "daring, original and very interesting".

3. On 7 Nov 2002 Mr Overbye, journalist at the New York Times, had the following exchange with the theoretical physicist Prof. Arkadiusz Jadczyk :

Overbie : "I have been following the Bogdanov affair for the New York Times with >interest. I saw your latest message today suggesting that their work >might actually be interesting."

Jadczyk : - "Right".

Overbie :"Does this mean that after your days of >dialogue with them, you think there is some merit to their work after >all and that they are not just spouting nonsense?

Jadczyk : - "That is my "working hypothesis" as of today.

This "hypothesis" is still working today and Prof Jadczyk still thinks that we might have "intriguing and interesting ideas".

You wrote : "Become alarmed of this "affair", the editorial board of CQG issue a statement to apologize for having published one of your paper.Why no one at CQG had defend this paper against the critics ?"

I am sorry to tell you that at least someone has really tried to defend our work. Following some indescretions, we happen to discover that the referee (we do not know him, but the rumor says he is a higly reputed theoretical physicist) really battled against the editorial board of CQG whère no one was having any competence in the field of our paper. Nevertheless he failed. At that time, all newspapers of the planet were after us (including New York Times, Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, Zeit, etc) and the pressure on CQG was such that no one, in the editorial board, felt that it was worth the sorrow to fight. Contrarely to what you wrote, in the context of the discussions dominated by the quasi unanimity of the physicists who thought that we had made a hoax, it was the only "wise" decision. But this is also why CQG never issued any "official" statement and did not decide to withdraw the paper (as they would have done if they had really thought that it did not have any scientific merit). Just to remind you, here is what was written by the referee of CQG :

« QUALITY ASSESSMENT: Q2, Sound, original and of interest. With revisions I expect the paper to be suitable for publication.

The author's make the interesting observation that, in the limit of infinite temperature, a field theory is reduced to a topological field theory which may be a suitable description of the initial phase of the universe. I recommend the following points be clarified in the paper before publication:

(1) Through out the paper, \beta = 0 is stated and it would be much clearer if \beta -> 0 is considered which better describes the limit of infinite temperature.

(2) On page 4 (and other pages e.g. page 6) \beta -> \dot which should presumable be replaced by \beta -> \infty? There is also a reference missing on page 4.

(3) Much of the details in section 2, regarding the metric independence of the partition function, are standard details which could be omitted. Also, the form of the energy - momentum tensor T_{\alpha\beta}, given on page 8, is true for a specific type of field theory. The authors' provide no information of the nature of field theories being considered in the paper. For example, are they supersymmetric etc.?

(4) The authors' point out the H=0 (or L, which is typical for topological field theories) can, more or less, be viewed as the same as \beta H =0 for \beta =0 (in the limit of infinite temperature).

This crucial and interesting observation needs to be supplemented with more detailed analysis since it is crucial for their ideas to work. It would be very helpful and more convincing if the authors' could provide further support. For example, can contact be made with general covariance or topology on taking the \beta->0 limit of some established standard results?

(5) I can accept that in the limit of infinite temperature, contact can be made with a topological phase of some field theory (the type of field theory needs to be elaborated on however). The crucial question, however, is how does the initial topological phase break down to a universe we see today. It would be of great interest if the authors' could at least worry about this issue.

(6) The scale of metric mentioned in proposition 2.2 is not easy to understand.

(7) In some places, the grammar used needs to be re-worded. Also, the various "black dots" which appear throughout the paper are confusing and need clarifying.

If the author's can successfully rectify the above, I will recommend the paper for publication. »

You wrote : "According to you, every single paper can be repudiated only because it's targeted as a nonsense paper!"

No. This is caricatural. Believe it or not, 97 percent of published papers are, at first sight, incomprehensible for their colleagues (even in their own field). It is not a sufficient reason to repudiate these papers.

You wrote : "About Majid,you say that he bumped you off, only because you had published a report !!! Here is another conspiracy theory. "

This is not a "conspiracy theory" but merely the truth. Majid did not accept that a technical report on our thesis could be considered by the public as a support to our work. He repeatedly said that he was only concerned by the quantum groups part which, according to him, was never connected with the KMS theory nor topological field theory as developped in our thesis. Therefore he got furious when his report was published in our book. Far from being a "conspiracy theory", this is a fact : Majid did not want to appear as "the guaranteeing mathematician" of the physical speculations which were totally outside his field of expertise. And after all, we cannot blame him. We already wrote on usenet that it was a mistake to have published his report in our book.

Igor

The objective measure of opinion in the physics community.

"Most physicists understand it to be a hoax or at least to be sloppy work plagued by numerous errors, while some theoretical physicists think highly of their theories."

is far more factual than

"Some claim it to be a hoax, while others claim it to be simply sloppy work plagued by errors, and some theoretical physicists think highly of their theories."

in fact, it is generous to the Bogdanoff's. even more accurate would be

"The vast majority of theoretical physicists understand it to be a hoax or at least to be sloppy work plagued by numerous errors, while fewer than 9 theoretical physicists think their theories to be plausible."

the last version is most accurate of the position of the physics community as shown by the discussion at sci.physics.research, however, since the Bogdanoff's are so insecure about any criticism of their "work", granting them "most" instead of "the vast majority" is a gift they should be grateful for. r b-j 15:25, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Rbj, thanks for your message on my page. Yeah, I've noticed that the sentence about some/most/vast majority of the physics community is a bone of contention, and no wonder. It kind of is the heart of the matter, isn't it? It's not for me to sort it out, it's for you guys, the editors of the page. But I would suggest making the discussion of what "most physicists" and "some physicists" think fuller and more specific, not just on Talk but in the article. If people disagree about how to summarize in a sentence what the physics community thinks, then let everybody give chapter and verse, name names, maybe give statistics about physicists and peer reviewed journals, even, if they're available (is your 95% an estimate, or a real figure, with a source? Did somebody count them?). Do you think a true picture would have a chance of emerging if both sides do this, rather than revert each other? IMHO the article deserves to be longer than it is, anyway.

Btw, does anybody know why the text uses the spelling "Bogdanoff", when both Igor's sig and the article name say "Bogdanov"? Seems to me that that is one thing the brothers should get to decide. But I don't know—has it been discussed, is there some principle involved? Bishonen | talk 17:32, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

the B. brothers have used both spellings in their email correspondence and USENET posting. they can say explicitly what spelling they prefer and we should all endevor to use it hence.

perhaps a look at the sci.physics.research thread can fill anyone in at what was said at the time this first sorta blew up. there is some serious back-and-forth between Baez and Carlip and Lodder and Bunn and the I/G Bogdanavs where the brothers made appearances of answering the technical bones being picked, but their answers were not accpepted. one person likened it to "nailing Jello to the wall".

reality is not dictated by majority rule, unless the topic of reality is about what the majority says. perhaps the brothers are so forward-thinking that they share the same place of honor as Einstein, but currently, the state of the physics community rejects their publication even if, at the time, some particular reviewers of peer-reviewed journals did not bother to. that has changed and at least one journal has published that the papers should not have been published if they were to be submitted again. "hindsight is 20/20 vision." r b-j 22:29, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Warning: I'll protect again if this continues

All right. Anonymous IPs with no previous history on the page (or anywhere) keep reverting to Igor's preferred version, without responding to the objections and suggestions raised here, and now without even an edit summary. That's edit warring, and a slap in the face to other editors who take the trouble to discuss. Unfortunately there's little point in blocking such nimble IP's, so if their destructive behavior continues, I'll just protect the page indefinitely. Bishonen | talk 03:20, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

The first reverting (83.79.98.205) was mine (Laurence), and I explained it : (The previous version was a lot more objective, I re-establish it), and I changed only that ! I was "anonymous" just because I am not yet inscribed in the english Wikipedia... The sentence "more objective" (according to me) was re-established a second time, by somebody else. Is that "destructive behavior" ? So if we don't agree with this version, are we supposed to let the other, just to prevent ourselves from being criticized as kind of vandals ?

Laurence

I haven't called anybody a vandal, please don't put words into my mouth. Thank you for leaving an edit summary, it's appreciated, but calling the version you prefer more objective isn't really an "explanation" — everybody thinks their version is more objective! It kind of goes without saying. You need to explain, here on this page, why that version is more objective, argue for it, present evidence for it. It's frustrating for other editors if you just revert, and bad for the article, it's the kind of thing that easily escalates into a revert war. But the next anonymous revert, with no comment in any form, was a lot worse, I quite agree. I hope you will create an account here soon, as you mention you haven't yet done. It would simplify things both for yourself and others (compare my comment about timestamps below). You don't have to, it's up to you, but I honestly think you'd find it more convenient that way. Bishonen | talk 17:53, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

No problem, I created an account. I hadn't done it yet because I already have one for the French Wikipedia (same pseudo), and I didn't know exactly if both versions were separate or interdependent.

Laurence67 12:28, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

it's fine by me if you protect it in the form it is as of 10 minutes ago (dunno if they got to it at this minute). note the IP was some "ripe.net" from Paris. i just can't imagine who's doing it. again, perhaps the Bogdanoff's physics is absolutely correct and all of their critics are wrong. let them make that case. what isn't true (and what i believe is the impression they're trying to make) is that there is roughly equal amount of support for their publication as there is rejection of it in the wider physics community. "Some physicists" saying their publication is literally BS while "some theoretical physicists" think highly of it. in fact, many more physicists think it to be baloney (but skillful use of the jargon to make it sound like physics) while relatively a very few physicists are willing to say it has bona-fide merit. the majority could be wrong and the B brothers could be right, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of the wider physics community that claim they understand the terms and topic of their publication reject it as of having genuine value. r b-j 03:54, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

This IP (194.206.212.1) is Igor and/or Grichka's one when there are not in Paris (and not using a anonymous Proxy). It is the main gateway of a IP over GSM/GPRS provider (Orange). You can block it since such costly service is not very popular (yet), especially not for the quite bandwith consuming task of editing Wikipedia ! It won't work much if they continue from Paris, Wanadoo's IP are very very volatile in a class B network.

BTW, I suggest you to read and examine links on A story of quotation marks, "transcendental" rational numbers and Photoshop to have a better idea of the kind of people we are dealing with. --YBM 08:10, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

And if you are not convinced by the author's accusations and arguments, don't even try to write it as a comment on his blog, you will be censured and banned as soon as possible for him ! If you can read in french, you will have greater detail here in my article "YBM, manipulation et censure". To be continued...

Laurence

Laurence, I don't understand who you're speaking to: from the placement it looks as if it's to YBM, except that I'd suppose you know he can read French. It's altogether hard to understand your part in the conversation when there's no chronology and your comments are inserted between other people's. Please sign posts by typing four tildes like this, ~~~~, it'll create a timestamp automagically when you save, and that will help a lot. Bishonen | talk 17:53, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I understand the misunderstanding, which is linked to the fact that I am accostumed to write about the "Bogdanov Affair" in french. "You" is imprecise in that case, indeed, while in french we have "tu" and "vous" to help us. I was speaking to any reader, not to YBM, of course. For more explanations, see below, after your third "answer to Laurence" !

Laurence67 12:28, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. 194.206.212.1 only has two previous edits to Wikipedia, both from 2004. I'm hoping my gentle persuasion above will do the trick, because I'd really rather not protect. People may want to improve the article in unrelated ways, for instance someone might zoom in on that "masquerading as pseudoscience", do a double take, and change it. (Hint, hint.) ;-) Bishonen | talk 08:34, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

There are many ways to make the article better, especially by taking a wider point of view on science, medias and pseudo-science. Anyway I won't work on this here since it would lead to conflicts and usual edit wars and personnal attacks. I would prefer someone not involved at all in the affair (not Igor, not Grichka, not a fan without any kind of scientific background like Laurence, not CatherineV - who is managing a 'fan' website - even if she is quite constructive in the talk page, and not... me), preferably a native english speaker, to work on the issue. --YBM 09:26, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, bye bye, YBM, we will miss you !

Do as you want, but I dont't care about what you "would prefer". Sorry for you if it's not as easy for you on Wikipedia as it is on your blog and forum, in which you can censure the posts which do not suit you, as you did several times for Sandrine and myself. I understand that you prefer to come back in your "home" in which you can say what you want against the Bogdanov Brothers, it's so easier without being contradicted !

Laurence

Laurence, this page isn't your blog for posting sneers and personal attacks on, either. It's a Wikipedia:Talk page, please use it only for comments aimed at improving the article. That's the only thing it's for. And note that every page at Wikipedia has a civility policy, please click on the link to learn about it. Bishonen | talk 17:53, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't you think that describing me as "a fan without any kind of scientific background like Laurence, not CatherineV - who is managing a 'fan' website" is not a kind of personal attack ? Don't you understand the contemptuous nuance of this description ? It is very representative of YBM for two reasons :

1. He tries to present us as stupid and uncultivated "groupies" in order to give the impression that nothing we can suggest about this article has any interest for an encyclopedia.

2. Above all, he suggests that we shouldn't take part to this article... of course ! That's one of his main ways of doing : trying to silence people who do not think like he does. "At home", as I said above (it means : on his blog and his forum) it's easy : he censures, technically. But on Wikipedia, he can't do the same, so he has to be a little more subtle. So he writes to the administrators (you know about it...) to complain to them about people who disturb him (including myself : now we are judged by a "comité d'arbitrage" in the french Wikipedia). Besides, he managed to have Sophie banished from the article... And regularly, he tries to deny the Bogdanov brothers their right to stand up for themselves, calling "vandalism" each of their interventions.

OK... that's why I spoke about "censure". Sorry, I understand that it was not very clear for people who haven't followed this "affair" for months and months...

So please, Bishonen, try to understand this principle : one needs to understand the context of the "Bogdanov affair" (it means what occured on the forums) in order to be able to understand what occurs on this article. I can assure you that each word written by YBM, in the article or in the talk page, is a personal attack against the Bogdanov brothers : his extreme "motivation" to destroy them as public figures has his origins in a dispute he had with Igor, more than one year ago, in a newsgroup ! Since this "event" he has harassed them on the Web, and in their "real life" : he tried to make them fire from France 2 (french TV channel) by writting to their employers, and to have their theses cancelled, by calling and writting to a lot of scientists in french universities.

So, call that a "personal attack" against this poor YBM if you want, but please, just remember that all this affair is a personal attack !

Laurence67 12:28, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, I'm quite satisfied with the article as it now stands. It's not a fan's work (even though I contributed to it, ha ha), nor is it unfairly derogatory. My suggestion is to block it as it is now as all the facts have been provided for and any addition would only relate to opinions. If not, I agree that someone not involved in the affair could do the, erm, inflation work, but always under supervision by anyone who cares. I, for one, will always keep a close watch on this page even though I'm not eager to keep on discussing every single word added to it. This can drive you insane, trust me on that one. CatherineV 11:01, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Categories

The article is referenced under categories such as "hoaxes" or "pseudoscience". Aren't these categories a judgement in themselves, all the more so when there are no positive categories such as "theoretical physics" or "Big Bang" to compensate ? I do think so, and would like to hear the opinion of someone considered neutral. CatherineV 11:58, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Those categories prejudge the issue, I've removed them. It's true that if you clicked on the Category:Hoaxes link , you'd get to a category page that states that the tag's "not intended to disparage the authenticity of the subject, but to denote its provenance as controversial". The trouble is most readers won't click on the link, they'll just see it and think "aha, it's a hoax". We're not supposed to argue disputed points by means of cats; please add only uncontroversial cats. Category:Hoaxes is uncontroversial on Sokal Affair, but not here. Bishonen | talk 13:39, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Of course, assigning any category to the Bogdanoff's work is a judgement. Just as assigning it to category "Hoax" or "Pseudoscience" is a judgement, so is assigning "Physics" or "Science." The intriguiging aspect of the "Affair" is that physicists can't agree whether this is just error-filled work, or something more malicious (I wrote in the article "some theoretical physicists think highly of their theories" merely to satisfy the Bogdanoffs and CatherineV).

It isn't clear whether the Bogdanoffs merely regurgitated buzzwords to get PhDs (as most scientists appear to think), or if they are simply sloppy students who don't understand the intricacies of the mathematics and may or may not have an interesting theory (like Ark appears to think).

In any case, an extremely important aspect of the "Bodganov Affair" is that this is "Pseudoscience" at best, and a "Hoax" at worst. I have to implore that these categories be retained.

By the way, I have been (and will be) on travel for a while, so my IP address is in flux.

--EE Guy 72.255.10.186 14:54, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Right. Well, for people trying to make sense of a page or its history, an IP address in flux crosses the line from merely hard to keep track of, to impossible. :-( It would be great if you'd consider creating a name account to avoid the problem. Bishonen | talk 16:15, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Good point... fair enough. Bienvenidos to my new account "EE Guy." In any case, I do think it is important to put the categories "Pseudoscience" and "Hoax" back into the article. Also, could we remove the "Stub" tag?

--EE Guy 21:36, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Whatever one can think about their work, the Bogdanov brothers have a doctorat in science, so their field is science, not pseudoscience. The only "hoax" in this affair is the mail sent by Niedermaier which produced artificially the controversy, but we know that he took back what he had written, and that the Bogdanov themselves assured it was not one.

Laurence67 10:17, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I hate to disappoint, but having a doctorate merely means that the person juped through more academic hoops (I jumped through 6 years of doctorate hoops). See the pseudoscientific field of Autodynamics. It was proposed by the Physicist Prof. Dr. Ricardo Libertario Carezani. And, yet, it's still provable nonsense. Few people doubt that the Bogdanoffs worked diligently for a decade in working to get their work published. L. Ron Hubbard also worked hard to get see his ideas in print. We have to judge each idea on its own merits. In the words of Motl, whom Igor himself referred to as a supporter, "Some of the papers of the Bogdanoff brothers are really painful and clearly silly... But the most famous paper about the solution of the initial singularity is a bit different; it is more sophisticated"

Thus, in the view of Igor's self-described supporter, some ideas the Bogdanoffs are "clearly silly." Do the twins have ideas that aren't silly? Perhaps there are... again, each idea should be evaluated on its own merits. But the only uniform view currently is that there are many ideas in their work that simply don't rise to the level of science.

--EE Guy 12:11, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

You don't have to judge that : whatever your opinion about it, they are scientists, their field is science, so the categories must be in scientific fields.

Laurence67 15:52, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

no, they have the credentials of scientists. and the whole point of the Affair or scandel is that these credentials were obtained dubiously. just because one obtains an MD doesn't make that person a physician, although it is generally necessary. they are not yet (if they ever will be) scientists and that is the fact recognized by who would be their peers if they really were scientists. the B brothers are going to have to start doing science instead of image grooming. rather than worry about what the rest of the community is saying about them, they should do real science (if they know how to). if the work product of theirs is as good as they would like us to believe, the peer consensus will eventually come around (they should submit their work to physics conferences for presentation, if they dare, i think the likes of Carlip and Baez will excoriate the B brothers). but their efforts really seem to center not around creating knowledge but around protecting their self-perpetuating image. r b-j 00:10, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Whatever the right categories may be for this page, I don't see any chance, that an "affair" can be categorized in Category:Big Bang. For this reason I reverted the recent cat changes. --09:04, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

See Also

The new "See Also" category is a slap in the face. Talk about presenting both sides of the issue and not taking judgement. In one word : delete. Oh and I realize that reaching a consensus after weeks of discussion was merely a temporary achievement. Back in the trenches. CatherineV 10:08, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

And especially concerning "The Emperor's New Clothes" : which relation with the article ? If it's just for the joke or as a judgment, I can put also anything ! So there will be a "revert war" again, and the article will be blocked again. Is it what we want ?

Laurence67 17:05, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

What consensus?

I am sorry I have to intervene again in this debate whose (I think) only specialists of the field should take part.

why is it that you include yourself in this? your objectivity is decidedly suspect, this article is about you and your brother. your very credentials are decidedly suspect, that is what the article is about.

Here are my comments :

1. About CQG statement

"At a later time (2002), the editorial board of the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity issued a statement that said that the Bogdanoffs' submission "... made it through the review process even though, in retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal." One editor said that if the Bogdanoffs' paper had reached his desk, he would have immediately sent it back saying "The article is a potpourri of the buzzwords of modern physics, that is completely incoherent."

There are many problems with this comment :

a) It was not an "official statement" but an email sent to Greg Kupperberg and copied on internet. So it is wrong to quote it as an official statement.

here is what they said. the words are very clear and it was issued from the editorial board. just because they are not flattering to you does not mean they are not there.

   Classical and Quantum Gravity and the paper "Topological theory of the
   initial singularity of spacetime" by G Bogdanoff and I Bogdanoff, Class.
   Quant. Grav. 18 4341-4372 (2001)
   
   A number of our readers have contacted us regarding the above paper
   and in response we have decided to issue the following statement.
   
   Classical and Quantum Gravity endeavours to publish original research
   of the highest calibre on gravitational physics. It is not possible for the
   Editorial Board to consider every article submitted and so, in common
   with many journals, we consult among a worldwide pool of over 1000
   referees asking two independent experts to review each paper. Regrettably,
   despite the best efforts, the refereeing process cannot be 100% effective.
   Thus the paper "Topological theory of the initial singularity of spacetime"
   by G Bogdanoff and I Bogdanoff, Classical and Quantum Gravity 18
   4341-4372 (2001) made it through the review process even though, in
   retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this
   journal.
   
   The journal's Editorial Board became aware of this situation already in
   April 2002. The paper was discussed extensively at the annual Editorial
   Board meeting in September 2002, and there was general agreement that
   it should not have been published. Since then several steps have been
   taken to further improve the peer review process in order to improve the
   quality assessment on articles submitted to the journal and reduce the
   likelihood that this could happen again. However, there are at this time
   no plans to withdraw the article. Rather, the journal publishes refereed
   Comments and Replies by readers and authors as a means to comment
   on and correct mistakes in published material.

   We are also grateful to our readers, contributors and reviewers for their
   vigilance and assistance both before and after publication.
   
   Dr Andrew Wray
   Senior Publisher
   Classical and Quantum Gravity
   Institute of Physics Publishing
   
   Professor Hermann Nicolai
   Honorary Editor
   Classical and Quantum Gravity
   Albert Einstein Institute

b) "At a later time..." is misleading. Because this email was a direct consequence of Niedermaier Hoax.

what "Niedermaier Hoax"? he assumed (mistakenly since you continue to deny it) that you were perpetration a hoax. when he realized that you're intention was not to expose shortfalls in the review process in the same way as Sokal, he withdrew that charge. doesn't mean he agreed with any of your "physics". in fact,

c) If this email should appear in the article, then there is no reason to avoid publishing the report of the referee.

it's pretty long. and it's the referee's compentence that is also called into question. no one disputes that at least 2 referees accepted your paper in CQG, but the whole point of the scandel is that they did.

As a consequence the best solution would be to supress this so called "statement"

no. it is there and it is fact. you only want to suppress it because it is not flattering to you.

About " very few physicists..." :

"While very few theoretical physicists think positively of the merit of their theories."

This phrase is wrong. On what concrete elements does the author qualifies the number of "pro" and "anti" bogdanoff? Did he manage to do a survey? No, of course. And I can say that the mathematicians or physicists who wrote an official statement about our work are certainely more numerous than the one who expressed their opinions on internet. We got 15 official reports written by specialists in our field. This number is superior a) in quality (as an official statement against some vague and non motivated opinions in internet forums) and b) in quantity (I count hardly ten (not motivated) opinions coming from real scientists although their field of expertise does not allow them to produce any real scientific opinion on our work. Last point, the mathematicians or theoretical physicists who officially gave their opinion in written did not only think "positively" but "highly" of our theories.

that is untrue. they said that you may have had a couple or few good ideas. the fact is, nontheless, there are only a couple or certainly less than 10 physicists of any standing that do not dismiss your publication as "gibberish" or (literally) "bullshit". that is the fact, Igor, and you can not run away from it, even though you are desparately trying to obscure it.

It is written and (only if necessary) we can produce their reports.

Therefore I will revert this phrase to its initial form.

Igor

we should add Quackery to the list (but quackery is usually junk science applied to medicine). r b-j 16:52, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I definitely support the present version of the article. The fact that the Bogdanov are deeply delusional on their own "work" is not an issue. --YBM 17:36, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Dear RBJ,

We have a problem here. Essentially for the reason that you persist to impose your views against any tangible elements.

1. The CQG report

As I said many times, it was not an official statement published in the journal itself. The fact that it was issued on internet (as an email) is quite important. If the journal editorial board would have issued an "official" statement, they would have done it in the journal. And it their conclusions had been that our papers did not meet the standards of the journal, they would have withdraw the paper. Since none of this happened, such a non official email (even if it was signed by 2 responsibles of CQG) certainely do not represent any reference in the matter. In fact, when you present it in the article of this encyclopedia, you make it appear as an official statement which is not the case.

Consequently, once more, I will suppress your phrase.

2. The opinion of scientists involved in this debate

Here too you are creating false informations. You should separate "official reports" from "internet discussions". These are two different categories. We got 15 official reports on our thesis issued by experts in our field. These reports are not only positive, they are highly positive. Here is one good example :

"...This year I had two graduate students who successfully completed their thesis. In addition to that I have been on numerous Ph.D. exams. The present thesis ranks among the best I have seen during the past few years. I am particularly impressed by the scientific maturity of the author and by his courage to pursue a single great idea to great depth.

At the University of Stony Brook, he would pass the Ph.D. exam without the slightest difficulty. It is my strong recommendation to approve the thesis of Igor Bogdanov."

Prof Verbaarshot, Stony Brook University

This statement was officially written for the university on the basis of a deep work made by the referee. It has nothing to do with an internet statement. When you put these internet statement at the same level than an official report of expert you are falsifiying facts and the way science is done.

Therefore I will revert your phrase to the previous version which was object of a consensus.

Igor

This report is indeed very intriguing... Verbaarshot was not a reporter of you thesis, why would have he written such a report ? --YBM 20:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

---

I quote Pr Verbaarshot report because he was referee for the first version of my thesis. Later (as it appears in the records of Bourgogne University) he was appointed by the University as co-advisor of my thesis. During 1994/2002, I was part of the Mathematical Laboratory of the University of Bourgogne. Pr Sternheimer is a mathematician (quantum groups theory). He was responsible for the mathematical part of my thesis. Pr Verbaarshot is a theoretical physicist (Random Matrix Theory, Instantons). He was responsible for the theoretical part of my thesis.

Edit war

All right, I'm neutral as to the matter of fact and have no personal interest in this page, but I have to say Igor Bogdanov's (or whichever brother is using the anon IP) behavior today, in editing a page about himself, has been disgraceful. If I'd been around earlier, I would certainly have blocked him for violation of the 3RR. By now YBM has violated 3RR too. By rights I should block both, but since YBM has applied for mediation with the Bogdanovs on WP:TINMC, I prefer to block neither. Of course I've reprotected the page. Bishonen | talk 22:47, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Dear Bishonen,

You might not have personal interest in this page, but accept the simple fact that I may have some personal interest in it.

After having worked for french television, we spent many, many hard years working on our thesis in the Mathematical laboratory of the University of Bourgone under the supervision of Pr Flato and Sternheimer. All went (more or less) well untill this very "dark day" when Niedermaier sent his mail claiming that our thesis and papers were a hoax.

You have to accept the simple fact that our work, all we did for almost 10 years of full dedication, all our sacrifices and efforts were ruined in a few hours.

All what happened after, all the suspicions, the critics, the harasment, the CQG email, the "hilarious articles", etc, has been generated by this famous email. To day, this "discussion" on Wikipedia is a direct consequence of Niedermaier's hoax.

You have to accept that I may know the whole story and its hidden aspects better than most of the people involved in this debate.

Therefore, you should also understand that my implication in this series of revert actions is certainely not a "disgraceful attitude". On the contrary, I have been trying to balance as far as I could all the informations that were thrown on the page of this article without respect to any objective truth.

If the article reflects only the Herman Nicolaï and Andrew Wray CQG November 1, 2005 email, it projects a very negative and unbalanced image on our work. This is the reason why I proposed to quote part of the (technically positive) referee"s report appointed by CQG on our work. Not allowing this piece of report to be published in order to balance Mr Wray and Nicolai's negative opinion is an obstacle to the objective information one should expect from Wikipedia.

Sincerely,

Igor

"All what happened after, all the suspicions, the critics, the harasment, the CQG email, the "hilarious articles", etc, has been generated by this famous email. To day, this "discussion" on Wikipedia is a direct consequence of Niedermaier's hoax."

This is plain wrong. Niedermaier's e-mail is a consequence of the weakness of your work

One could find a lot of scientifically argumented rebutals of your delusions, from Damien Calaque, Alain Riazuelo, Alain Connes, Majid, Oeckl, Baez, Kounnas, ... One could find a lot of scientifically argumented critics of you work on TV and "popular science". You've even shown recently not knowing what a algebraic curve is. One could find tens of example of dishonesty on your side : forgeries, lies, sock puppets on the Internet, mistranslations, misquotes, threatenings, corruptions, use of political influences, DNS faking, etc.

Niedermaier has nothing to do with that. --YBM 23:29, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Igor, and I do realize the importance to you. In my opinion, though, you need to be more, not less, careful to act correctly when editing a page about yourself. Anyway, please note that User:YBM has requested mediation with you on the page WP:TINMC, please respond there. It would be much appreciated, btw, and make things easier for the mediator, if you would please log into your account (User:Bogdanov) when you post there (and anywhere). I do appreciate your signing your posts on this page manually, thanks for that, but when you're not using your account, the equally important automatic "signature" in the edit history is always simply that of the IP you're editing from, and it's not easy to identify you by that. Bishonen | talk 23:41, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

@Igor: you said: I may know the whole story and its hidden aspects better than most of the people involved in this debate. Exactly that reason makes you a very bad contributor. An encyclopedia doesn't contain hidden aspects, it contains verifiable knowledge. Hidden aspects and uncovering them is the realm of investigative journalism, as you must know better than me. --Pjacobi 08:00, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

---

posted to WP:TINMC by r b-j  :

i am not a physicist. i am an electrical engineer with some experience in publishing and in academia, although i'm not in the academia at the moment. being on the Review Board of a technical journal (Journal of the Audio Engineering Society), i have a little experience about how stuff like this gets published. no journal is immune to it which is why some physicists thought that the Bogdanoff brothers were stinging the physics discipline in the same way that Sokal did to the sociology discipline.

The are two initial possible classes for the Bogdanoff's work: either it has some merit (perhaps with flaws or perhaps not flawed at all) or it has no merit.

if it's the latter, then it is bad science or junk science or pseudoscience (which would be called "quackery" if the science were medicine). in that case, it doesn't matter what the consensus of physicists think. reality is not dictated by majority rule.

if it is the former, that is that it is not devoid of merit, then it is either mainstream science or it is fringe science or protoscience. but here, which category that it falls into does depend on the consensus of the mainstream of the existing discipline. if a majority or even a large minority of physicists recognize the Bogdanoff's work to be valid (or, at least, to have some merit) a case could be made for it to be called "mainstream". but, given the supposition that the work has some merit, if the Bogdanoff's work is not respected as having any merit by any more than a token set of recognized physicists, then the best that can be claimed for it is that it is fringe science or protoscience. that label is not necessarily disparaging. a century ago special relativity was fringe science or protoscience and now it is standard in any introductory modern physics text.

but if the theory is not accepted by the "mainstream" physics community, there is no basis to claim that the theory is mainstream. and if it is not mainstream, the remaining categories are: fringe science or protoscience, and junk science or pseudoscience. in some manner, even string theory, which has a lot of adherents and respect, must accept such a label. if it turns out that string theory can never be falsifiable, it will eventually fall by the wayside and become an obsolete theory.

so there are two main questions to deal with:

1. does the Bogdanoff's published work have technical merit or not? that issue is too technical and arcane to be debated here. Igor would be correct to imply that only the "specialists" can debate this effectively, but he is not correct that this is the salient question for debate about the Wikipedian article. Wikipedia is not the Annals of Physics nor Classical and Quantum Gravity nor the USENET newsgroup sci.physics.research. it would be nice if we could get more real physicists other than User:YBM involved, but then again, Wikipedia is not the place for real physicists to slug out what is or is not real physics.

2. the other question that is salient is: what does the wider community of physicists say about the quality and veracity of the Bogdanoff's work? well, there is quite a record and, despite the publication of their earlier papers in reputable journals, the record is not flattering for the Bogdanoffs. the VAST majority of the credentialed physics community has utterly rejected and dismissed their published work as "wrong", "hoax", "embarrassing", "incoherent", "gibberish", conceptully invalid (my paraphrase of many positions), and even "BS" (and i don't think they mean "Bachelor of Science"). VERY, VERY, FEW physicists have come to their defense on the record. we virtually only hear the journal referee's comments (and only relayed to us via the Bogdanoff's, that has to be a dubious source) but that fails to recognize the problem. no one disputes that the Bogdanoff's got published in a couple of legitimate journals of theoretical physics. the problem is that their papers are believed by the mainstream to be without merit. the journal referees competence regarding this arcane field are also suspect. and the merit that Bogdanoff's try to extract from such publication has been destroyed by the fact that the editorial board of CQG has made it clear that the papers, in retrospect, have failed to meet the standards expected of any article published in the journal. the editors of CQG have repudiated the very papers that the Bogdanoffs have published in their journal. this is undeniably damning (except that Igor does actually deny that it is).

the Wikipedia policy is that there is no original research and neutral POV. the fact that the Bogdanoffs continue to defend their work as genuine should be reported as such. but the fact that their work is overwelmingly rejected by the mainstream physics community should also be reported as such. including links to fringe science, protoscience, junk science, and pseudoscience is not inappropriate at all, because there is no way that anyone can claim it to be in the mainstream. r b-j 02:33, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

---

The psychological profile of a mirrored Sokal hoax

<Irrelevant character assassination under this heading moved to User talk:XAL by Bishonen | talk 08:56, 14 September 2005 (UTC)>

Discussion continues here

I do love the vaudeville manner that things always turn into vast conspiracy with the Bogdanov Affair. Blaming Niedermaier for the "hoax" is similar to Richard Nixon blaming Woodward & Bernstein for Watergate. He merely brought the alleged silliness to the Bogdanoffs' work to the attention of the wider Physics community. And, yes, he assumed the silliness was the result of a hoax. After learning the Bogdanoffs adamantly denied that their work was a hoax, he wrote in an email:

"... Dr I. and Dr G. Bogdanov informed me that the `hoax premise' is incorrect. I expressed my sincere apologies to them which they accepted.... Everybody is invited to judge the scientific merits of the Bogdanov's published work independent of their intentions on his own."

This is an apology, not a retraction. According to Niedermaier, is the work a hoax? He is not publicly saying, but "everybody is invited to judge the scientific merits of the... work."

To say there is no affair is bizaare (but I've come to expect and love such statements). This affair is symptomatic of the many problems plauging peer review in general and theoretical physics in particular. Did the Bogdanoffs create a hoax? Or is it simply sloppy, error-filled work created by those without an understanding of what they were writing? That these questions cannot be definitively answered from the published work alone is intriguiging. From my conversations and readings, the uniform view is that the work is somewhere between a deliberate hoax and silly. (Mind you, this description even fits the views of the Bogdanoffs' self-described supporters Ark and Motl.)

And this doesn't even begin to point out the rather comical use of patently obvious sock puppets (Professor Yang, International Institute of Mathematical Physics, Mathematical Center of Riemannian Cosmology, etc., etc.). --EE Guy 10:29, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Discussion continues here 2

There is no such vast conspiracy than a cooperation between Mister Voyer as representant of his postsituanistic communyty, and YBM, as his image outside, and 2 accolytes of his. This has been describe above (see /Archive 1) and give all the details and references of the matter, including precedents in such a an infringement case with 2 other writers. The scientific people you name didn't acted with the purpose of creating an embarassing situation for the Bogdanovs by using lies, as Igor has pointed out many times already, it is the way it happened and precise incidents at the very beginning who gave it its marks, but it is the very subversive abuse of those and creation of more by YBM, who maintained the illusion about an affair and an hoax situation long after it was, or should have been, forgotten. I suggest that you accept not to blind yourself with only the aspect of the story that you can cope with, the pseudo scientifical one, for the gallery, and take the time to consider the other side who is so visible everywhere: th epresence of ybm and his misargumentation and subversive actions, for there is basically not much in the story to make such a commotion. So where did the explosion came from if the bomb was disamorced long ago and its scientific patron was blank? From another bomb, placed there like inadvertently, almost as a victim of the first one, but this one was ladded, with hypocrisy, lies, ignorance, active misinformation, and an auto generating source of hate. There is no scientific Hoax, and no scientifical errors to this story, only the denial of the existency of humans manipulations, and that madness and being easely talk into the worse case scenario are disease that scientists are not immune to. --XAL 18:09, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Discussion continues here 3

Dear Rbj: After having read your comments, I would like to insist on one point. There is no "clear consensus" about our work. Simply because there is no "clear scientific reader" of our work. The problem mainly comes from the fact that we should admit that we deal with 3 different levels of interpretation of our papers.

1. Level 1 : physicists, mathematicians and others who are not experts in our field and who have not read any of our papers (except a few lines of the abstracts).

This "level 1 category" is the vast majority. The "leader" of these scientists was Niedermaier himself: although his field of research is very far from ours and without understanding what we did, he sent orbi et orbi his famous email where he qualified our work as a hoax. Following Niedermaier, many scientists then expressed on Internet negative opinions about a work that they did not read nor understood but they created the "surrounding noise" : our work is a hoax, sloppy research, etc.

In conclusion: as members of "level 1 category" these scientists did not read a single line of our papers. However, such obstacles did not prevent any of these "level 1" scientists to convey a negative opinion on the basis of the "surrounding noise".

2. Level 2. : physicists or mathematicians who are not experts in our field but have tried to read our papers.

Our work is based on very specialized fields: quantum groups, KMS theory, topological field theory. A theoretical physicist whose field is General Relativity (for instance) would only get a very, very vague idea of what we are doing. Inevitably, "helped" in his conclusions by the "surrounding noise", this scientist will see our work not as a "hoax" (they understand enough material to see that it is not the case) but as "gibberish".

3. Level 3. : theoretical physicists or mathematicians who have seriously read our work.

Scientists are very busy. It takes lots of time and energy to read seriously a paper. It is hard to understand what an author means in his paper (even if this paper belongs to the same field of expertise than the reader). Most of scientists do not have "time" to read their colleague's papers: unless they really have a good reason to read such or such paper, most of the scientists concentrate only on the articles that are directly in connexion with their own work (particularly they will focus on the papers they will quote in their work).

As a consequence of it, the only experts who seriously took the time and energy to read our work were the ones who were forced to do it in a written form:

The 15 referees of our thesis: Moshé Flato (University of Bourgogne), Jacques Demarret (University of LIeges), Dominique Lambert (University of Louvain), Marceau Felden (University of Paris XI), Ignacios Antoniadis (Polytechnique), Damiano Anselmi (CERN), Jac Verbaarshot (Stony Brook University), Jack Morava (John Hopkins University), Roman Jackiw (MIT), Shahn Majid (Cambridge University), Costas Kounnas (CERN, ENS), Dimitri Gurevitch (University of Valenciennes), Pr Marle (University of Paris VII), Eric Leichtnam (ENS), Daniel Sternheimer (University of Bourgogne)

The 6 referees of our papers

All in all it represents a total of 21 experts who produced a very positive answer about our work. In this case, the vast majority of the specialists who really read our work (because they had to do it) came with a positive vision of it and they wrote it without being ambiguous (motivating the reasons why they found our work original or interesting).

Finally, there are only 3 "level 3" experts against 21 (Eli Hawkins, Urs Schreiber and Damien Calaque) who clearly put in writing a negative opinion about our work (although Shreiber and Calaque are still students -at least for Calaque- and it is not certain that they should be considered as plain experts).

Normally (I mean if the Niedermaier Mail had not been launched) the positive opinion would have normally prevailed on the few negative opinions and our work would have been considered as "original and interesting" or at least would not have been distinguished from the rest of the scientific production.

But with the special mark of the "hoax", all changed: it became almost impossible to regard our work as serious after such an event. This is why theoretical physicists as Jadczyk or Motl were particularly courageous to support us by publicly declaring that our ideas were "interesting" after our work was descibed as a hoax.

In conclusion: try to understand that the "original hoax" cannot be dissociated from the "general opinion" about our work. It will probably take years before the "noise" goes away. This is why we are battling so hard to maintain some objectivity on this encyclopedia. --Igor

Let us keep in mind that, according to this definition, a supporter is one who says:

-Motl: "let me first say that all physicists seem to agree that

the detailed structure of the paper... probably makes no sense

isolated pieces of the paper are more or less true - and they were probably copied from other papers

the brothers have had a financial interest to promote themselves as geniuses because it helps their books"

-Motl: "Some of the papers of the Bogdanoff brothers are really painful and clearly silly"

- another Motl quote: "I personally don’t find the [Bogdanoff] paper terribly valuable, but I insist that its vagueness and strangeness is comparable to the vagueness and strangeness of other works about equally difficult and unknown subjects." --r b-j 21:01, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

-Jackiw: "It showed some originality and some familiarity with the jargon. That's all I ask."

-Sternheimer: "These guys worked for 10 years without pay. They have the right to have their work recognized with a diploma, which is nothing much these days."

-Jadczyk: "The fact is that Daniel Sternheimer had no qualifications and/or expertise to supervise your thesis."

-Jadczyk: "personally I would not rely on him [Majid] as thesis suprvisor/referee in the case like yours."

-Sternheimer: "That was certainly not the worst thesis in physics that has ever passed, and it got only a rarely given passing mark."

-Sternheimer: "But one should not pick on them for details, which will always be imprecise and even somewhat incorrect unless one rewrites the paper for them and prevents them from introducing last-minute brilliant looking and incorrect statements."

-Jadczyk: "You did not answer my question.... I am not asking this question.... I am not asking about this.... Again: I am not asking about this.... This is not answer to my question."

-Jadczyk: "So, now, you are changing your story."

--EE Guy 18:48, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Say EE Guy, could you ascribe those quotes to the particular Bogdaoff "supporters" that said them? Many of them I did come across but I forget where. Maybe I'll compile a list of what the detractors said either in their webpages, blogs or on sci.physics.research. Do you still think that I was childish in reverting Igor's "objective" edits to this article about him and his brother?

For Igor to claim that there is no clear consensus within the mainstream physics discipline that their work is bogus is self-delusional. The problem is that he must not be allowed to delude others who don't know better and which is precisely what he is doing. Rather than doing physics, Igor is doing PR. --r b-j 20:51, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear EE Guy:

You have to remember (I think I said that once) that I never created any article about us on Wikipedia. I did not ask for it. But since it is now existing, I really would like it to be as neutral and objective as possible. You know as well as I do that all the "quotations" that you made from our "supporters" confines to a sillly game. I could produce much more positive statements of phrases, or fragments of phrases, most of the time coming from the same persons, and you know it.

The problem is simple: under its present form, the blocked article is NOT balanced. The negative email from CQG should be balanced by some lines of the report of the referee. That's all I ask. --Igor

We all know very well how you could "could produce much more positive statements of phrases, or fragments of phrases", by misquotes, mistranslation (as you did with Giorgis, Mahjid, Schreiber and Woit) and a bit of Photoshop when it's not enough? BTW, what you are asking for now is not what you did first and later: rewriting the whole article as a ridiculous hagiography. It is indeed a good move. --YBM 21:45, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Those points described above have been already proven unguillible and abondantly explained above and in archive 1, and in your own site where a person did give you a lesson in photoshop.

You have no decent rights nor power in your word to present such claim when you are deleeting every day other users own texts, and making changes to articles. I have in fact observed that what you reproach the most at any moment to any given user, is ipso facto what you are the most doing yoursel at that time to others.

You have been accused of misquotation and mistranslations of the Bogdanovs book extract, that by the way you ommit to ask copyrights for, and didn't even named who the writters were nor what the title was, against wiki 1st law.

It is in archives 1l dated from last days of august, so it is still fresh, fresh enough to remember it, therefor I see no other reason for you to talk of misquotation and mistranslation against the Bogdanovs, than an absurd attempt to pay them back. For at that same period of time your translation in english of their text was prooven wrong, and the same is to be sayed of your quotation of other people view and criticism (interpretated as by you) by other scientist, until Igor edited here the original copy of those documents , which should have result in an apologize from you. But instead you just kept silent until time enough had passed to take it back again from your bag, as I have noticed you doing in similar forums and website on the internet, and dated from end of 2003, up to today. And now to give EE guy his most cherished answer, if you want to know whom created Bogdanovs affair site on wiki, ask YBM, he has just recreated one this week by the way, in an artificial attempt to get his side of the story and the dispute, not debate, to keep rolling.

Some get blinded by too much light some keep blinded. --XAL 02:32, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

RBJ, I attributed the quotes above to their respective owners. And yes, I think it was childish to engage in a revert war. There was a consensus article and, in my opinion, your posts violated the integrity of the agreement (in fairness, you did not agree to the consensus, but...).

Igor, in my mind, your request is a reasonable one. Personally, I think the CQG report is better left to a linked Web page since, as you pointed out, once we start including quotes, it will become an avalanche.

Thus, my preference for the consensus article is to simply drop the inline CQG quote and link to the information on an external site (e.g., Baez). However, I also think the current protected article is fine (so, perhaps it should stay protected forever) but, in fairness, having only one side selectively apply quotes from the Affair isn't fair or neutral. --EE Guy 02:38, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Listen, EE, you count the relative number of times that I have edited or reverted. Compare that number to the number of times either Igor or one of his sock puppets or fans have, and there simply is no comparison. As the article became more and more skewed to stroke the Bogdanoff brother's ego or vanity or insecurity (by obscuring the hard fact that their published papers have been utterly rejected by the mainstream physics community) I have occasionally snapped it back to reality. I think I have edited the article about the same number of times (recently) as you. Didn't come close to the 3RR. Hardly engaging in a revert war on my part. But I will not let the article become a vanity article nor will I let the fact that, at best, the Bogdanoff brothers theory is fringe science (that's assuming they're correct and the likes of Baez and Carlip are wrong). They have no credible claim that it is mainstream science.

BTW, thanks for the attributions. I am completely on the other side. I think that the wikipedia article should include ALL salient quotes, with attribution, so that readers can really decide for themselves what the physics community really says about their published "work". --r b-j 05:03, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

One last thought: I don't understand the opposition to See Also links to Consensus science, Scientific consensus, Fringe science, Protoscience, Pseudoscience, Junk science. They are really relevant to the core issue of the Affair article. Either the B brothers are right and the Mainstream is wrong (making their "forward-looking" theories protoscience or fringe science) or the B brothers are wrong (and the likes of Baez and Carlip and many many others are right) which means that, assuming it's not a deliberate hoax, that the B brothers are promulgating junk science or pseudoscience. Of course the latter is not flattering to them, but the former is not so bad. But, again, they just cannot credibly claim that they are "mainstream". That is just unbelievable and ludicrous. --r b-j 05:25, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Discussion continues here 4

Dear EE Guy: Contrarily to what rbj wrote here above, I do not think that the article should include any quote : the reader would be totally disoriented by the simple fact that most of the "negative" quotes are dually linked to "positive" quotes coming from the same author. Here is an example of it:

Motl's "negative" quote: "Some of the papers of the Bogdanoff brothers are really painful and clearly silly"

Motl's "positive" quote: "I really think that they (Bogdanoff) ask many important questions and propose intriguing possible answers."

So yes, if we start quoting it will create a "supersymmetric" avalanche of dual quotes where the reader will be totally lost.

Now, regarding the blocked article, I personnaly think that it would be somehow preferable not to quote the email of A. Wray and H. Nicolaï in the body of the article (links would be much better). But if this quote is maintained, then it is necessary to quote some lines of the report of the CQG referee. --Igor

Discussion continues here 5

Considering the lack of reactions about my last proposal (here above) could we (somehow) conclude that we reached an agreement on this point? --Igor

No. --YBM 10:10, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I do not know how far your opinion should be taken in consideration. Just a little example of your "objectivity" : you do not hesitate to censure us as soon as we write something which embarrasses you on your site "Epiphysique". Since I told you that I got the affidavit, signed by our publisher, that you made wrong assumptions regarding what you called a "falsification" of a proof", you decided to get rid of all my posts. Such a behaviour is certainly not a good example of "objectivity". --Igor

I don't remember you to allow anyone react on your own sites about your blunders. What I won't allow on Épiphysique is to flood any discussion with bunches of meaningless words, whoever posts them. Any relevant comment on the article or the issue would pass the moderation. --YBM 11:40, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear YBM:

When you say Any relevant comment on the article or the issue would pass the moderation it is NOT true and you know it quite well. I have tried to post 6 different comments and none of them appeared on the page. You can always say that my comments would "pass the moderation" but since yesterday it is not true anymore: this is called censure. Nothing more. Nothing less.

PS. As far as my own sites are concerned, I have only one site and it is not a forum or a blog when Epiphysique is a public forum where everyone may post his comments freely. The nuance regarding the way your site works is important: you accept only the messages, posts and comments that are "anti Bogdanoff". Any "pro Bogdanoff" comment will be suppressed without delay. How do you call such a policy? --Igor

First lie : there is, at this time, 3 (not 6) comments from you in the moderation queue (and there are all irrelevant, I can copy them on a garbage thread of the forum if you wish)

Second lie : there are numerous "pro-bogdanoff" comments on the site, the moderation is about relevancy.

Third lie : Epiphysique is not a forum, it is a Web site where article are published by registred authors. You've been posting on numerous scientific blog under faked identities for long enough to know very well how such sites work.

First comment : how are all your today comments related to the article content? --YBM 12:21, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Fresh Start

Couple of notes here guys from someone outside the topic:

• Igor, if your the Igor mentioned in the article. You might want to think about stepping back just a little so that it does not appear that your edits are driven by your POV or vanity.
• Also, bickering about details not directly on wikipedia does not credit either party.
• I have not read every last detail but will try and get familiar with the subject and the talk here. But what I recommend on is that you both work together to form a list of objections with each sides stance and place them here for a concensus on each issue. And then wait one week for all parties to contribute. Ask for others to get involved and contribute. If a consensus is not made, lets extend the date or figure something out. But lets stop directly attacking each other. --Terry ^{T | @ | C} 12:57, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, this discussion is to reach a consensus on the English version of the Wiki article. Nothing more. (Sadly, that means no personal insults.) With respect to Igor's question, I believe he and I agree that no quotes should be considered, just links to places where the quotes can be found. But I also know that YBM and RBJ do not agree with that, so we have to reach a consensus on that front.

The other issue that I was disappointed with last time was the categories. I think the article belongs in the following categories:

Pseudoscience

Hoax

Cosmology

Journal Articles

Sociology of Scientific Knowledge

Theoretical Physics

I know that Igor and Catherine disagree with the Pseudoscience and Hoax categories and here's my logic for wanting/demanding those: An crucial issue with the affair is that some people are convinced that it is a hoax, others think it is pseudoscience, while others think there are worthwhile theories here. In any event, there is an affair (and hence a Wiki article and this discussion) only for the reason that some people are convinced so. That is why I propose placing the article in both pseudoscience & hoax as well as cosmology &c. --EE Guy 13:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear me, I thought this page had been blocked and hadn't checked it for days, and you've all been firing away. Well, just a few comments before I can read it all. I can live with the "hoax" category if other positive categories are given in counterpart. Also, thanks to a previous contributor (whose name I shamefully forgot), I understand better the concepts of fringe science, pseudo science, etc, so thanks for the enlightment. Finally, I definitely think quotes are better left out as they make for a long and potentially confusing text. --CatherineV 18:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear EE Guy:

Fair enough. I agree with you on 2 points :

1. No quotes in the article (only links)
2. You are right in your argument regarding the categories. Therefore I agree with your proposal to place the article both in pseudoscience & hoax as well as cosmology, theoretical physics, etc. --Igor

I disagree on the category "Hoax", I do not think this is one... or did Igor just confess ? --YBM 13:46, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Just because the potential hoaxer (or is it "hoaxist") does not admit to a hoax does not mean that it is not a hoax. Because of the non-zero possibility that it is is a deception of some sort (maybe it's not, maybe it's just junk science, or maybe it's good science but not yet accepted by the mainstream, therefore it would be fringe science), then giving it some relationship to hoax is the most correct. --r b-j

In addition to no personal attacks, I would also like to ask people not to be deliberately obtuse. --EE Guy 13:54, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

With that I surely agree. --r b-j

Agreed. YBM that was not called for. Igor agreed upon the comments of EE Guy and the reasoning. It is not an admission of anything. --Terry ^{T | @ | C} 13:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Please don't put the article in Category:Cosmology. Not even real cosmologists are included there. It isn't a category for persons, groups, meetings, cabels, affairs. --Pjacobi 14:36, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

But they have a physical theory that they purport to be some form of cosmology. It is disputed (and I wish we could get some real cosmologists to comment here, but I'm afraid that they're so busy and I suspect that they dismiss the B brothers so out of hand that they do not want to bother putting any energy into this) but that is what they say it is.

I would invite the B brothers to take their theories to some serious and widely recognized comology conferences and maybe some string conferences (since it looks like what they are putting forth is something like branes, or at least it is an alternative theory to creation than what the branes people are saying).

The point that we must not let be obfuscated is that the B brothers "physics" is not accepted by the great majority of credentialed physicists who have bothered to comment about it. I disagree with suppressing these quotes. We need to quote both those of supporters (including name and institution) and detractors (including name and institution) and of the editors of journals, both in support and not, so that the reader can see without clicking on all sorts of webpages what this controversy is all about. Light is a pretty strong disinfectant. --r b-j 16:42, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Putting this article into Category:cosmology or not is a matter of category structure and independent of the quality of B's work.

Stephen Hawking has also some cosmological theories, but neither is his article in Category:cosmology.

It is in Category:Cosmologists, but also this category can be excluded for structural reasons, as Bogdanov Affair is not a biography.

If someone wants to re-write the Bogdanov's thesis and publication into an article (and if that survives VfD), that article would be a candidate for Category:cosmology. At least it would alarm a large enough number of our cosmologists. --Pjacobi 18:07, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, fine. You've persuaded me. (I still think that all of the evidence in the myriad blogs about this affair supports including it in the hoax category.) --r b-j 18:22, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Vote: Consensus on Hoax Category

Hoax seems to be the category of contention. The votes will end 7 days from now at 10:00am EST Sept 22nd. Please place a Support, Oppose or Comment under each and any material to support your answer if you so choose. Lets keep this NPOV and no personal attacks. Even if you have made comments for or against, please do so again here. --Terry ^{T | @ | C} 14:04, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Hoax

• Oppose -- AFAIK this is NOT a hoax, it has been taken as a hoax by a small set of people for a very short time. --YBM 14:09, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

• Support -- We do not know that this is a hoax nor do we know that it is not. Hoaxers seldom confess. The fact that other deceptive practices have been used (not saying for sure by whom, but it has been done to try to persuade skeptical physicists that the Bogdanoff's published stuff have merit) leads me to believe that hoax might very well be the motive. But they could just be quacks. Who knows. Maybe they're truly geniuses (which is clearly what they want to project) and the physics mainstream is full of a bunch of dummies that haven't figured it out, yet. -- r b-j 16:49, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
• Comment -- I'd like any party to consider what we are talking about here. There is two very different issues to take into account : 1) Is it likely that the Bogdanov build up a hoax? 2) What an encyclopedia should say about what has been called a hoax once. About 1) : I spent a lot of times talking with the authors and I did read tons of their production (papers, interviews, TV show, books), I am quite sure they are sincere in the sense that they consider themselves as genius who discovered how to deal with the origin of everything, of course this is incredibly delusional since they are unable to deal with basic math and physics -- but that is not the issue here. Then about 2). Niedermeier considered Bogdanov's work as a hoax for a very short time (AFAWK), Baez, who've spent far more time trying to resolve the case and is still working on it, rejected the "hoax hypothesis" very quickly as well. I don't know of anyone, scientist or not, who insisted on the hoax hypothesis for long. On another hand, it is an epiphenomenon caused by the crapy papers. Putting the article in the "hoax" category will provide a precedent to any crackpot to put any article on a scientific subject which has been called an hoax one time or two (Unix, C or Special Relativity come up to my mind, there are numerous references for all of them). IMO, categories pseudo-science is ok, as well as cosmology (not because it is a real work on cosmology, but because the cosmology is involved, as well as theoretical physics and mathematics). --YBM 00:49, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
• Comment -- I suggest Category:Fraud instead of Category:Hoax --YBM 20:58, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe you're right. I'll think about it, but, like Baez, now this affair is just so irritating that it makes my head hurt. The Bogus brothers will now just want to wear me down so that they can edit the article without impedance, but I (and others of good intent) have to be resolved to not let that happen. --r b-j 21:11, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Request to Unprotect

I have submitted a request to unprotect this page. But this means that disputes should be brought here to be discussed and even posted to get a consensus on the issue. Let's not revert to an edit war and have it locked again. Let's keep NPOV and bring the discussion here. Sound Good? --Terry ^{T | @ | C} 14:29, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. This is nowhere close to being ready to unprotect. An edit war will begin almost immediately because I, for one, will not let this become a vanity article nor let it obscure the fact that the Mainstream physics community rejects their published theories and that, in fact, one of the journals they published in now repudiate that very published paper. I will not let those hard facts slide and the B brothers, their sock puppet, and their fans will not let those facts remain in the article. --r b-j 16:49, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, let's try and work on it and let's agree that concensus rules WP. I have posted this issue in a new subheader as I recommend we do with each issue. Take it and lets tackle it issue by issue, and when each issue is resolved we then update the main article. There is no need to elude to further fighting on the Main article page if we promise to battle here. --Terry ^{T | @ | C} 19:26, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear Rbj:

When you write "one of the journals they published in now repudiate that very published paper" what do you mean exactly? You should know that "now" applies to an email that was issued on Nov. 1, 2002, in the middle of the storm caused by Niedermaier's hoax. I have two questions here:

How do you explain that CQG did not withdray this very published paper (as they had the capacity to do it)? And how do you explain that Motl, a theoretical physicist who certainly knows the subject, considers this very published paper as the most interesting of all the articles we wrote?

When you say (in a way which is difficult not to interpret as a certain arrogance) "i will not let those hard facts slide and the B brothers, their sock puppet, and their fans will not let those facts remain in the article.", I put to you a very simple question:

About CQG, when you repeat that our paper cannot be anything else but mediocre, who do you think one should believe: you (although you admit yourself that you cannot judge the content of this paper) or Motl (who can read and understand most of it) to conclude that it might be interesting?

I just tell you this so that you could envisage some other options between "black" and "white". If all this "affair" could contribute to moderate your views (not only about this particular point but also in a more general way) it would not have been a total waste of time. --Igor

Igor, this section is for the consensus; please move your comment to right section or start a new one. Thanks... --Terry ^{T | @ | C} 17:48, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Mainstream physics community acceptance of work done

Ok, RBJ has pointed out that another issue is the desire to include that the mainstream physics community does not accept the concepts of the Bogdanov brothers. The other side is that this information should not be included. Either way it is decided should be a consensus and both sides must agree by that or come up with an alternative solution to satisfy both parties. Lets try and work on it here.

Terry, I am not sure if it is possible to come to a consensus regarding the inclusion of what these physicists (and the editors of CQG) are saying about the B. brothers' published "work". There is little in it for the B. brothers. Not to say that you can't find a positive comment or 2 out there, but, to illuminate this matter to the fullest is not what the B. brothers want. It is not flattering to them.

My view - Is that if there is a significant number of physists that denounce or do not accept their work, it is worth it to mention this. However, the other side must be represented in the article. For the other 99.9999% of the population, we want the general view point of the Bogdanov Affair including the good and bad. Btw, what is an "Affair" if there is not conflict? The theories presented by the brothers need not be valid; only that they are described as to what, who, when, where, and how. Also a major criteria for material on wikipedia is verifiable sources and citing of references. --Terry ^{T | @ | C} 19:22, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

It's a helluva lotta work, but the links are there (and the links lead to more links). I will try to compile a list of what physicists have said (along with names, affiliations, dates, etc.) Don't expect it in the next 24 hours. --r b-j 00:13, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, even though there are quite a few of blogs and websites about this affair and dozens of commentors, ALL negative (except for some Motl and Ark), I have tried to skim the top of the cream and put them here: Talk:Bogdanov_Affair/comments. More are to follow.

I must say that at first I thought that YBM was a little agressive with these "hapless" brothers who thought themselves expert in some arcane area of theoretical physics, but after going through this all, seeing ALL of the deception (sock puppets and misquoting people's evaluation of their papers) that they have attempted, and other lies (their PhDs years before they ever got them), etc. just so many lies, that I must now say that I have nothing but contempt for the Bogdanoffs. They are not sincere. They are not merely mistaken. They are hucksters, swindlers, con artists. If this were a criminal trial, the jury would eventually get sick of their lame defenses and simply say "Guilty, guilty, guilty!".

We are not dealing with honest people."'

Hoax, pseudoscience, The Emperor's New Clothes, excrement are precisely appropriate. For the sake of society, these con-men need to be exposed for who they are. --r b-j 03:26, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

It just so happens that I also came to the same conclusion as you did, RBJ. However, everybody I know who has read about the Affair also came to the same conclusion and me without a biased Wiki article to push them along. I don't think we need to get into a battle of dueling quotes to present the story. If a reader decides for themselves that the Emperor Has No Clothes, then so be it. Ditto for excrement. But I believe the most powerful way is to let readers peruse linked Web pages.

By the way, I didn't realize that Igor recently threatened Woit with a lawsuit... After that hamfisted mistranslation of his critique, that could almost be as smart as setting up the International Institute of Mathematical Physics. --EE Guy 04:50, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Dear rbj:

I think that such a "research of quotes" (with names, etc) is precisely what should be avoid here. Why? Simply because in science a non-motivated opinion does not represent anything different than any average opinion (whoever is the author of this opinion). Unless a "One phrase opinion" ( given as an interview for instance) is based on a motivated and written analysis previously done by the expert, it does not represent any reall value, I think.

You see, in science, when an expert gives his opinion on a theory, a paper, etc, he writes it down on a paper and motivates his comments and/or critics. This is the case with the important number of reports (21) we got from experts regarding our papers or our thesis.

But this is definitly not the case with the "spontanous opinions" which were generated on Internet forums and various newspapers by the affair. All these opinions are "impressionistic", non-motivated and cannot be taken at face value. It is not enough to write in 1 phrase (even when the author is a physicist)  : "this work is hoax" (specially when this very physicist recognizes that he never read the work in question).

In conclusion: To be credible, such an opinion should be detailed and argumented. And in our case this never happened. I am sorry to say that the only Internet opinion that was motivated in detail was the one from Motl. Apart from him, we only have tons of "little phrases" that could have no matter whom as authors. --Igor

As usual, I wonder why you happen to lie when you know that the proof that you're lying are only one click away:

• Note on a preprint from G.B.
• Some of the many argumented critics of the astrophysicist A. Riazuelo on your work
• How you've shown not knowing what an algebraic curve is etc. --YBM 12:25, 16 September 2005 (U

Dear YBM:

When you write "I wonder why you happen to lie..." I do not think that you contribute to build a good climate of exchanges.

Not only you are rude but you do not show any objectivity in this discussion. Why? because if you had read correcty what I wrote above, you would have found this:

"Finally, there are only 3 "level 3" experts against 21 (Eli Hawkins, Urs Schreiber and Damien Calaque) who clearly put in writing a negative opinion about our work."

This phrase is defintely clear: I was quoting the negative motivated written notes on our work.

If you want the discussion to progress, you should stop insulting people and read correctly what has already been written. --Igor

Do you contest that the three links I provided are detailed and argumented, the kind of critics which "never happen in your case"? Could you pretend you've never heard about them? Lying deliberately is a huge contribution to a bad climate of exchange. Why don't you comment the content of the critics instead of who is posting about them? You behave exactly as the anti-Sokal post-modernist hord: criticizing the supposed intentions of the writers (and forging them) but not what they actually wrote. --YBM 13:11, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I feel like I need to shower, but I agree with Igor. The idea that one can summarize any contemporary research with an out-of-context quote is extreme... be it positive or negative. Furthermore, what is the correct positive to negative quote ratio for the Bogdanoffs' work? Is it 1:1? Is it 1:1000? Once we get the proper ratio, then we have to decide how many quotes in total. I suggest avoiding this game all together. If RBJ or YBM feel it necessary to include quotes, then why not set up an external Web site and have the Wiki article link to it? (Like YBM's potpourri page.) --EE Guy 13:04, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

One comment that may not be entirely welcome, but what the heck. Disregarding whether the Bogdanov's theory is right or not, it is "socially" much easier to oppose them than to defend them, even more so when you're a scientist. I've heard that if you defend them publicly, doors may shut on you. It takes a lot of guts to write in their favor, even in the subdued way Motl has used. So any ratio you'd be trying to come up with is doomed to be utterly unbalanced. --CatherineV 19:00, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

It's very sad to read such argument under your name. It as well very badly considered to defend astrology, memory of water, intelligent design, etc. especially if you are a scientist.

Critics against Bogdanov's work came from scientific arguments you can read from several source (Baez, Riazuelo, Calaque, Schreiber to name few in the scientific community, any reader of ALBB with a basic scientific background could point out at first sight most blunders in Bogdanov's work). Peter Woit explained very clearly what kind of "guts" have made Motl write his comment (which is not, in the very end, quite supportive). --YBM 19:26, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but there are scientists who lend a favourable ear to their ideas (mark my choice of word here) but will not say so publicly for obvious reasons. And I hate to say this, but their blunders on the web do not make it easy to take the stand for them either. Do I know something about it... Yet, I trust there's more to them than that awkward line of defense. --CatherineV 09:15, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I do not see how intelligent design ended together with the other categories, but never mind, YBM can found its definition in Wikipedia if in doubt...

The article from Peter Woit is dated from June 2004 and can hardly constitute a proof of any kind. I will be most interested, as allready mentioned before, to hear a recent opinion from a physicist on that matter. I am trying here in Danmark, but as EE - or another - mentioned it, they are quite busy, specially now, but there is still hope. It will also be refreshing to get some new blood in that story, from an outsider to this whole affair, mening a scientific outsider, hopefully a specialist in theoretical physic. RjB has come with some offending statements, and I am truly sorry to have to disappointe him, but the article about the emperor's new clothes was written by YBM in a cynical attack against Igor. I have been today on my talk page, accused of having done it, so I looked at it already this morning. Is there a leak somewhere that I am not aware of?...

About the Vote I think that the thesis of the Bogdanovs brothers must be categorise under Cosmologie and High Physic and Theoretical Physics, and the affair must be put under Hoax, as the affair, not the thesis, is, as everybody here know, an Hoax. It was put in place by a very small group of people,as it can be seen on the links to different forum and web site allready stated above, and based on Niedermeyers previous accusations, who had allready been redrawed at the time that theHoax took place. John Baez took a big part in it, as unknowing prime motor to the Hoax, but him too changed his statement, which nevertheless continued to be used for a very long time, up til last week, as a pillar of this made up story. All allegations uttered from this small group have been echoed to the infinite during 2 long years for no reasons. Let's hope not for nothing.

All allegations have been dismantled and explained again and again, by Igor, but the affair had at that point got legs of its own, so to say, but still the same head. We have some excellent statements and proofs resuming and reexplaining it all in archive one and two, made by Igor, and the only piece who is still missing in that puzzle, will be The confessions of YBM, which I expect to come sometime soon. --XAL 08:47, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Personal attacks and insults by rbj

I have just read r b-j's message just above, in "Mainstream physics community acceptance of work done" part. I copy the most shocking extract, according to me:

i have nothing but contempt for the Bogdanoffs. they are not sincere. they are not merely mistaken. they are hucksters, swindlers, con artists. if this were a criminal trial, the jury would eventually get sick of their lame defenses and simply say "Guilty, guilty, guilty!".

"We are not dealing with honest people."

"Hoax, pseudoscience, The Emperor's New Clothes, excrement are precisely appropriate. for the sake of society, these con-men need to be exposed for who they are. r b-j 03:26, 17 September 2005 (UTC)"

These are clearly insults, particularly violent personal attacks: suggesting the categorie "excrement" concerning them... even in the worst forums I had never read such a thing...

r b-j brings up law, but does he know that such insults are absolutley illegal ? I know that threatening a contributor with a lawsuit is forbidden on Wikipedia, but does it mean that anybody can write any insult without risking anything? --Laurence67 15:13, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Listen, "Laurence", I dunno if you're for real or just a sock puppet. It doesn't matter anyway, but the way my lawyer puts it (regarding a similar threat made long ago) is, at least in the U.S., "the truth is an absolute defense against a charge of libel." It doesn't matter how negative the comment is, the plaintiff has to prove all three:

1. that it is false,
2. that the defendant knew it was false when uttered or written,
3. that it was damaging in a tangible way,

for a libel lawsuit to stick.

I came to this much more damaging conclusion about you (if you're a Bogdaoff sock puppet) or your buddies (if you're not) after reading repeated "testimony" from varied writers about multiple sock puppets (I think I counted 4), deliberate misrepresentation of these writer's comments of the B. "work", and threats of lawsuits when they didn't like what was said. Indeed one physicist said that the B brothers were "sinister" and retracted that to "mysterious" after such a threat. The fact that the "International Institute of Mathematical Physics" draws its name from a legitimate organization of some fame (now they have to preface their name with "Erwin Schrodinger" to differentiate from the phony), is additional proof of dishonest intent.

You don't fool me and you don't scare me. The Bogdanoff brothers are bogus, phony, and quite frankly dishonest. They are scam artists. It's just that it is laborious for someone to research it out to find out how bad it really is. But now there is no doubt.

They are trying to project (and protect) an image that they are some kind of geniuses in cosmology and whatever modern physics they purport to write about so that besides the benefits of fame, they can sell more books in the popular market. People like Baez, Carlip, Woit, Distler, Hawking, Kuperberg have solid credentials in the real physics community. They have questioned the Bogus brothers repeatedly about the details of their theory and the Bogus brothers have always either evaded their questions or answered with "nonsense".

Like other snake-oil salesmen, the more competent people really dig into the facts claimed, the more the lies are exposed and the scam is unravelled. The Bogus brothers are depending on the arcane nature of the topic matter to fool a large number of people and that is where the Emperor's New Clothes becomes applicable. I don't care if you or the Bogus brothers tell me I am just not intellectually worthy to see the "value" in their "fine cloth", I know it isn't really there. The "Emperor" are really the journals such as CQG and Annals of Physics that have haplessly paraded naked in front of the academic community after being taken in by the two "weavers of fine cloth" of whom we speak. --r b-j 16:46, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Not so fast without a thorough investigation of the facts

Dear rbj: Socket puppets is an insult that you read about in the talk page of athe dmin geogre together with other insults, by the way I am surprised that your text gets to stay when mine were removed for far less than that. Regarding the emperor new clothes, you just stated this expression above, as having being used by namely the socket puppet as insults, as a versus for the insults made by YBM, but now that you know that it was in fact uttered by him, you suddendly invert your statement and make it a non agressive, not hucksters like, non swindler like, statement. What about objectivity? As for the 3 points that you named, they in fact apply to you and to YBM, as knowing from before:

1. that it is false,

2. that the defendant knew it was false when uttered or written,

3. that it was damaging in a tangible way,

for a libel lawsuit to stick.

You both fulfill those criterions and that is why you have to use of insults instead of arguments to your defense. You have clearly been under a speedy propaganda session at ybm's school, and it is sad to see how easely you became converted. As for digging into the facts they claim, I will suggest you to do so about the case at hand, instead of preaching to those who have several years more experience than you have on the matter, in order to make your own opinion instead of repeating the sales arguments teached to you by YBM. I have nothing against parrots, but I do believe that this is an encyclopédia and not a place to shout about your own believes, and ideas that you do not properly understand. I will suggest that we come back to the contain of my article above as I believe it to be one of the most specific and important turn in the development of the affair.

"like other snake-oil salesmen, the more competent people really dig into the facts claimed, the more the lies are exposed and the scam is unravelled."

I happened to do it with the detractors story, as far as november 2003 to today, and my conclusions stands clear.

"people like Baez, Carlip, Woit, Distler, Hawking, Kuperberg have solid credentials in the real physics community. they have questioned the Bogus brothers repeatedly about the details of their theory and the Bogus brothers have always either evaded their questions or answered with "nonsense"."

Wrong, Hawking was never involved in those debates around the Affair, for the good reason that there is none, as for John Baez he has redrawed his critics, Woit's owns, date from june 2004 and will need a confirmation, and Carlip and Distler are from even longer before, and I think that their silence has to do with the tone of the debate, like you present it and with wich they most certainly disagree. You cannot put Hawking and John Baez (him again!) after each other in respectability rang, as Baez is a very young physicist, which area of knowledge has nothing to do with Cosmologie nor theoretical physic. I don't know whom you mean by "bogus" please be more substantial as this is an encyclopedy, not your private affect book or diary. You might need to know that all questions asked to the Doctors in Theoretic Physic, Igor and Grichka Bogdanov, were adressed by them in due form, and contained all the necessary scientifical evidencies to answer the questions asked, and that all those problems points ended up to be summon in one single word: misunderstanding, due to the different approach that the different branch of science have to math and physic, where theoretic physic approach of those differ in some extend from the others. When those points were clarified there was no longer any reason to pursue the debate any longer, unless one was new in the story, and wasn't aware of it. You are, rjb, using very old and used clothes, this argumentation of yours do not contain one single evidence and do not have what it take to make an argument into an argument, and not just empty accusations: which you will possess if you had performed a thoroughtly work of all the data behind it to know what you are talking about and how this debate streched itself through time and how we ended here and why. That's why Hawking never came by, as he know that, and don't feel the need to come screaming on the fish marked.

You do not have the right to call anyone on this page for socket puppet and you obviously do not know what it means nor where it did come from in this story. It came from YBM, again, because Igor signed on a forum with a pseudonym, as you are doing and as 99% of Internets users are doing, as YBM is doing, and have even used the name of another of his friend to do so, so I don't see what it has to do with socket puppet. But a more serious allegation, was the story about a server in Hong Kong and New york, who ended up with the very embarassing discovery for the accuser, that they had made a huge mistake, and among them was YBM. I have put links about it since at least august 15th, but new runners seems to think more about running fast than where. This socket puppet story is more than a year and an half old, and was killed a few days after it started, by igor, who had been alerted and could come whith the most plain and valid and simple information one could imagine, who had nothing to do with conspiracy, nor spionage, and destroyed all those fantasie world theories by tangible evidencies of a gross mistake on the part of the detractors. Nonetheless, YBM has used it again and again to convince newbies, unaware of the real facts, by diverting them to a website containing only a partial list of data. That's YBM colored glasses. It work and always has, and you are the latest in rank to come there. Welcome on board, hope you will enjoy the fly, and forgive him and yourself when it will crash. I think it is necessary to make this point clear once and for all to avoid new misunderstanding and the coming and going of those new people in the debate who are unaware of the fact that all those things have been discussed and settled before. It is tirering to see one even try. A propos sucket puppet, are you sure you aren't YBM's own? That will be it for socket puppet. As for your story about threats of law suit, I shall remember you that anyone is protected by the law and has the right to use it if they are assaulted by others. If the detractors had sayed the truth they had nothing to fear, as they have redrawed their accusations simply proove that those weren't water proof. If I insulted you for no reason and for a long period of time, would you or would you not have resort to the law?

In fact it is incredibly sweet of them to have come to this mean only as last resort, and that they didn't used it more often. You have absolutely no arguments against the theory of the Bogdanovs and unless you are ready to concretely argument for your insults, I suggest you to stop with it right away, and excuses will not be too much to ask at that point. Since you consider their thesis as being a phony and of no value, I feel obliged to ask you what your knowledge is on that matter? Did your read their thesis? Did you read their book? Do you have the necessary background to emet a single valuable judgement on their work? Or are you just improvising, in hope you will not be revealed, and that your pseudo science and parrots-like repetition of other peoples meaning, that you gathered her and there, will be sufficient enough to cover your track? I don't think so. It is time for you to make a reality check, and to stop using insults and vindicativ tone and empty but agravating accusations instead of plain argumentation. You obviously have no idea of what a thesis is, and how common it is for a thesis to contain errors or irregularity, or you will know that the ones we are talking about here is of extraordinary character, courage, and carat. --XAL 18:56, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

"But a more serious allegation, was the story about a server in Hong Kong and New york, who ended up with the very embarassing discovery for the accuser, that they had made a huge mistake, and this included YBM, I have put links about it since at least august 15th"

I've been digging in your whole editing history without being able to find such links. Given your specific style of writing it is nevertheless possible that I couldn't identify them in the bunch.

Given that I'm quite confident on the fake DNS issue (given that I got written confirmations from HKU, HKUST and HKDNR), I am very curious of the kind of discovery you pretend to have made, without providing any link to it. --YBM 19:09, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, ybm:

It's nice to know that the chapter above was called insults and attacks, in case anyone was given time enough to forgot it!

Why don't you look in the links that I put in your forum, those you ended to unable, and on the french wiki page about the affair, and as mentioned above on this site?

I understand and sympathize with you, that my specific writting style is far too elevated to meet your quiet degenerated, insultings and cynical mode, but I will sugest you to take a leap of faith and use it as a model of expression to brake your ulteriors outbursts, and ad a more subtile tone and even deepth to your rather simple and bashing style.

XAl, I really hope you are being sarcastic here. I've lightly cleaned up dozens of kilobytes of stuff you've written, and I can safely say that your mastery of English is one of the most atrocious it has been my bad luck to have read. Stick to the subject area. His insult has a grain of truth to it. Your writings are hard to read. --Maru (talk) 04:46, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

How could you be so curious about this link when we already discussed the subject at the beginning of august, for a month ago, both in your forum and on wiki french, did you forgot? I know french like wine, but if what you advance is true, don't you think that it should be time to drop the bottle, and if it isn't, to drop the lie? I can't seriously imagine how on earth you could forgot that, also given that you did participate at this discussion at the time it took place, and actively burried the Bogdanov and specially Igor, accusing him to be an idiot, unable to cover his track, because of his very poor knowledge in informatic, remember now? Which most certainly give you a first hand information about it.

Not the kind of defeat and humiliation one can easily forget, unless of course you try to use a biaise to avoid the question, it is a very usual sophism category, by pretending all together having no idea about what it is about.

Maybe you didn't learned the lesson, as we can see you again, with the same kind of criticism concerning Igor's lack of IT understanding, this time about some guillemets and Photoshop.

Oh! dear, will this delirium ever end? As you insist on having this link, here it comes: Voici le link oú on peut lire l'histoire en direct, comme vous y étiez: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000045.html

And as we are at it, here is a serie of other interesting links, with the participation of french scientists, some, like Laurent, PhD in Theoretic Physic, with ants in their pants:

• http://groups.google.com/group/fr.sci.physique/msg/669c56784faf5681?hl=en
• http://bogdanoff.forumactif.com/viewtopic.forum?p=227#227
• http://groups.google.com/group/fr.sci.physique/msg/669c56784faf5681?hl=en
• http://groups.google.com/group/fr.sci.physique/tree/browse_frm/thread/8a5253c3c7ab5ae4/c737b21c1f305c84?utoken=F4NLBDIAAAD-55KQrAqsvC7XQgbM6O-8ww-I-AULMJ-v880tKl4IqgYWfkOF69nRg2MTU_ZlqDxkSG9p011IxMJMvLoSwglF&hl=en&rnum=141
• http://groups.google.com/group/fr.sci.physique/browse_thread/thread/8a5253c3c7ab5ae4/540ff3bd08f120ca?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en&utoken=ovx8CzIAAAD-55KQrAqsvC7XQgbM6O-8ww-I-AULMJ-v880tKl4IqqEI81y7bnl3NrQIcGjIQcJU6ZMHNcY-sKSigexB1LaK
• http://groups.google.com/group/fr.sci.physique/browse_thread/thread/8a5253c3c7ab5ae4/540ff3bd08f120ca?lnk=st&q=&rnum=2&hl=en&utoken=ovx8CzIAAAD-55KQrAqsvC7XQgbM6O-8ww-I-AULMJ-v880tKl4IqqEI81y7bnl3NrQIcGjIQcJU6ZMHNcY-sKSigexB1LaK
• http://groups.google.com/group/fr.sci.physique/tree/browse_frm/thread/8a5253c3c7ab5ae4/3201c2e5eac45c09?rnum=121&hl=en&_done=%2Fgroup%2Ffr.sci.physique%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fthread%2F8a5253c3c7ab5ae4%2F5dd4af0aaf79502a%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26rnum%3D1%26prev%3D%2F%26frame%3Don%26
• http://groups.google.com/groups?enc_author=HOwqUCAAAABmhQoz9G09HIznHa0Lk-szPy9H81BFNO-7g7fe-ApRsg&hl=en

Those "Bogdanovians ants", as you liked to call them, and that you didn't like to see in action. But aren't we all perfect target of your accusations for being bogdanovian and socket puppet, by the sole fact that we tell the truth as it is? Just like "Them".

There is nothing there, not a single line, about the way Igor & Grichka did fake the DNS in order to pretend being related to Hong Kong University. Do you think that providing random links (all of them supporting the idea that the Bogdanov committed a frand moreover!) along argument is a kind of proof? Where did you learn science and logic? In the defense dept. of american gov.? --YBM 08:43, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Hey- leave the Dpt. of Defense out of this; it was the CIA and the contractors who were the culpable agents. --Maru (talk) 04:58, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

YBM, you have to follow the rules given by Bishonen now and change your habits of disrupting other user articles by intruding your answers in the middle of my text. Remenber the rule about line, separation and making your own space? Not stealing it. --XAL 04:31, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Concerning the sock puppet you just sent me one in my personal mail box, in the name of you dear Jean-Pierre Voyer, from the post-situationists Headquarter (for newbies) about your guillemets and your photoshop story. I recognised the guy style and glose, but my poor dear did you really build your story based on that?! You can't be serious, I must confess that there was a regretable confusion of 2 completely different photoshop software, an old old one, no longer in use, and a very new one who has nothing to do with the one refered to by your gourou. And thats how the rat get trapped. So your pal contacted me, but, desværre, as we say in danish, I could read your ip adress, mail and even name. Thats the danish IT system, this service is included and I pay for it.

So who is a socket puppet now?(((-:

Next time maybe? --XAL 04:23, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

What are talking about ? I've never sent you any mail. You are losing contact with reality a bit more every day.

How can someone be so delusional and have such an ill-logic ?

Tell us more about your story of two versions of Photoshop software. In forging stupid excuses, you're far more creative than Igor.

BTW, If you have paid something in order to identify client IP addresses from your FAI or whoever, you've been conned. --YBM 09:20, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, rbj, let me tell you that I do not need any "sock puppet" (your own words) to tell you frankly what I think of you. It stands on 3 points :

1. You are not technically competent to understand real physics. As an electrical engineer, you are certainly qualified in your field but not in ours. I would not allow myself to judge your job: electricity is not my domain and never will be. But in reverse, accept the simple fact that you are not a theoretical physicist and that you will never become one. Therefore you should also accept the simple fact that you do not understand a word of what we do. So don't talk of things you don't understand.

1. In addition to that, you have just proven that you are not morally qualified to give an opinion on our work. As a consequence of your lack of understanding (and also other things that I do not know) you become very agressive and very insulting. Try to behave as a decent person and to control yourself. This page is not intended to cure mental problems.

1. It should be time for you to realize that your behavior makes you lose all credibility as an editor of this article. As far as I am concerned, after what I have just read, I do not grant any more confidence in you. And I leave to the other participants of this page the care to value your last post for what it is: a sad and degrading attempt at destroying people that you do not know for reasons that should certainly not be evoked by any serious and fair editor. --Igor

This is the aspect of the Bogdanov Affair that is truly unique: the ability to wade through torrents of information without a single meaningful statement. And I am talking about the opponents and proponent(s) of the work. One gets the impression from the posts that the Affair exclusively piques the interest of children with a penchant for banging out semi-coherent tirades.

If your message does not pertain to improving the English version of the Wiki article, then please post elsewhere. Sophie, before posting another message, please think, rethink, then ask a friend's opinion, and then a stranger's opinion first.

I have been sifting through the detritus on this page and haven't run across anything in quite some time as it relates to improving the article... Any ideas? (I am happy enough with the current version and see no reason to unlock it at any point in the future, given the juvenile track record of edits/reverts.) --EE Guy 02:13, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Any ideas? Call upon 101 moderators to keep a permanent watch on this page? Seal the page with an unbreakable charm? Summon the ancient gods? I don't know. This discussion/dispute/disgrace has been going on for over a year, on dozens of fora, and not ONE moderator has managed to bring some reason, if not decency, into it. In the end, the only solution was to block the topic. Wikipedia will be no exception (although I once thought it might have been). --CatherineV 08:52, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I like the unbreakable charm idea ;) Perhaps the only solution is to keep the page permanently locked. --EE Guy 13:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Enough is Enough!

Dear EE Guy: Your lack of objectivity and of impartiality is so obvious that it is shocking to read the statement you made above! You happen to mention my name, not my signature, which is interesting given the fact that you never gave your name. It is also inherent to the discussion that you so enthousiastically preach for there, to adress me private insults when you do know, or at least should know, that all my, and Igor's, statements above, were answers to attacks made by this r-j-b and YBM, rjb having 2 sets of signatures by the way which make his accusations regarding socket puppets quite laughable. How on earth did you managed to avoid mentioning those 2 users attacks and insults of very agravating art? Do you have special glasses with filters for their allegations? In which case I would like to get a set of, it will spare me time and headaches! How long have you think to go on with your objectivitys' pretenses, while obviously taking side for YBM and rbj, imagining you could walk free with it, and nobody will ever noticed? How long are you going to deny the matter at hand? And that for exemple, to give a recent one, the reason why YBM denied the contains of the links I gave him as absolute proofs against his allegations, is that he is building on the assumption that no-one else on this page can read and understand french? How can you condemn disputes based on personal dislikes, when you are yourself giving in to that game in your statement by blaming me alone for the situation at hand? Am I the one using insults as "socket-puppets" as mean of argumentations? or am I the one trying to dismantle those pseudo arguments to clear the page from polluating objects? You should know better, and if you did, you will also know that it is and has always been YBM's way to pollute and hinder any discussions in any forums he has been into, and that he did the absolute same thing on the french wiki page about the affair, that he vandalised, and was therefor confined to carry on with his bluring and vandalising job on the english page. You are excused because you don't have been aware of those facts from before, and I hope that it will help you to master a better understanding of the seemingly absurd crap unfolding here before your eyes.Not at all whom you thought I was, --XAL 04:13, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

This talk page is just crazy! I'm tempted to simply remove any personal attack and any contribution which isn't related to the question of how to advance this article. I'll start with archiving the current page to set a definite point when to start this policy enforcement. But I'd need some more volunteers to cover a 24/7 schedule. --Pjacobi 08:18, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Pjacobi, I don't know if you've seen my report about this page on WP:ANI. I was trying to uphold basic wiki principles here until recently, but the stream of abuse directed at me by one particular user was starting to get to me. I may be back later, but for now I've walked away. Bishonen | talk 10:47, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen it. I was trying to avoid becoming actively involved here, but it is so horrific. --Pjacobi 15:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

New version of article; Igor's proposal

As I wrote about 10 days ago, it should not be very difficult to agree on a consensual version of the article. Here are my 2 proposals:

1) Suppression (as agreed by EE GUY,) of this quote from A. Wray and H. Nicolai:

"At a later time (2002), the editorial board of the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity issued a statement that said that the Bogdanoff's submission "... made it through the review process even though, in retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal." One editor said that if the Bogdanoffs' paper had reached his desk, he would have immediately sent it back saying "The article is a potpourri of the buzzwords of modern physics, that is completely incoherent.""

2. This non exact phrase:

"...the number of professional physicists who have published an opinion that the Bogdanoff paper is a hoax, "gibberish", or at best, a piece of sloppy work plagued by errors is much greater than the number of physicists who have defended the Boganoff's publication."

...should be replaced by this correct phrase:

"...many professional physicists have published on internet forums an opinion that the Bogdanoff paper is a hoax, "gibberish", or at best, a piece of sloppy work plagued by errors while some other theoretical physicists published official reports where they insist on the originality and the interest of the bogdanoff theory."

I think that this proposal is a fair and balanced one. --Igor

I agree with point one and generally with point two (I would prefer some different wording). Unhappily, I have to go to my office, so I will suggest a concrete change w/r/t point two this evening. --EE Guy 13:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I certainly do not agree with point 1. The fact that CQG has repudiated their very own publication is salient. And point 2 above does not reflect the salient fact the B. work does, in fact, fall outside the mainstream. I do not agree to supressing any quotes including some that reflect support for the B. work. The more light, the better. There are more quotes to draw from other than those compiled at Talk:Bogdanov_Affair/comments. I am willing to leave off direct quotes of references to sock puppets and other tricks allegedly perped by the B. or their supporters and references to the Emperor's New Clothes, but the fact that their physics is utterly rejected by the mainstream must be included. we must also include external links to Jacques Distler and others with significant things to say about it. --r b-j 14:32, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

perhaps we should try to state the entire article agreed to here before. Here's a beginning:

The Bogdanov Affair is a controversy in theoretical physics about the merit of a series of papers published in some reputable scholarly journals and the academic credentials awarded based on the content of those publications. The affair received widespread media attention outside of academic physics, where commentators questioned the strength of the peer-review system that science and acadamia use to determine the merit of work.

During 1999–2002, popular French TV presenters Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff obtained Ph.D. degrees on the basis of two theses (one in mathematics, one in theoretical physics) from the University of Burgundy. From this work, they published six papers in refereed physics and mathematics journals, including Annals of Physics and Classical and Quantum Gravity. After reading the abstracts of both theses, a French physicist named Max Niedermaier considered them to be pseudoscience, masquerading as legitimate science, an incoherent stream of physics buzzwords under a layer of dense technical jargon, in a manner that was similar to the Sokal Affair. On 22 October 2002, Niedermaier subsequently sent an email to this effect to various physicists. An eventual recipient of this email, the American mathematical physicist John Baez, created a discussion on the Usenet newsgroup sci.physics.research entitled, "Physics bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax? "

At a later time (2002), the editorial board of the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity issued a statement that said that the Bogdanoffs' submission "... made it through the review process even though, in retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal." One editor said that if the Bogdanoffs' paper had reached his desk, he would have immediately sent it back saying "The article is a potpourri of the buzzwords of modern physics, that is completely incoherent."

This question immediately attracted worldwide attention, both in the physics community and the international popular press. Upon learning that the Bogdanoffs disputed that their work was a hoax, Niedermaier issued a private and public apology to the Bogdanoffs on 24 October for assuming on the outset that their work was a deliberate hoax (he has not endorsed the validity or merit of the work) in the style of Sokal and the brothers have continued to defend their theories (which deal with quantum groups, KMS theory, and topological field theory, to propose a novel theory for describing what occurred before the Big Bang). While the general public can not be expected to have the specialized knowlege to evaluate the technical claims of either side in the dispute, a large majority of physicists who have publically stated in the physics forums their judgement of the veracity of the Bogdanoff publications maintain that they understand the publications to be a hoax, "gibberish", or at best, to be sloppy work plagued by numerous errors and invalid concepts relative to the current state of the discipline, while very few theoretical physicists think positively of the merit of their theories.

It should be emphasized that the Bogdanoffs adamantly defend their work as genuine. The general topic of "before the Big Bang" is a complicated field and their work purports to present forward-looking theories.

In 2004, the Bogdanoffs published a highly successful popular-science French-language book, Avant Le Big-Bang ("Before the Big Bang"), based on a simplified version of their theses, where they presented their own approach amongst other cosmological models. In the framework of a short weekly television program, created by the Bogdanoffs in 2002, a 90-minute cosmology special broadcast went on the air on the French channel France 2 in August 2004. Both the book and television show have been criticized for scientific inaccuracies, while others admire the Bogdanoffs' ability to bring the subjects of cosmology and relativity to a wider audience.

===See also ===

• Scientific consensus
• Consensus science
• Fringe science
• Pseudoscience

===External links ===

• A discussion of the controversy.
• Additional discussion with various people related to the brothers.
• «Pot-Pourri» from Igor & Grichka Bogdanov's Before the Big Bang
• Theses and scientific publicationsby Igor and Grichka Bogdanov
• J. Giorgis article in The Economist
• Urs Schreiber and Peter Woit (1, 2, 3) blog entries
• The Bogdanoff's personal web sites :
  • Mathematical Center of Riemannian Cosmology
  • International Institute of Mathematical Physics
• A physicist's account of the affair on the Internet

Rbj's last post does not allow any progress

Rbj's last post does not allow any progress. As it was written many times, the "quotation game" is not applicable to such an article (or any "encyclopaedic article" in fact). It is a simple conclusion.

Therefore :

Point 1 should be suppressed

Point 2 should be applied in order to place "pro" and "anti" bogdanoffs in perspective of the context of their opinions : It is important to establish a distinction between "internet opinions" (90% of anti bogdanoff opinions) versu!s "official opinions" (99% of the "pro bogdanoff" opinions). --Igor

Point 1 should be mentioned, but not as a quote, provided there is a verifiable reference. --Pjacobi 16:57, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

CQG repudiation or the Bogdanoff paper

Unless Igor can show that the CQG repudiation or the Bogdanoff paper is, itself, repudiated by the editors of CQG, the original repudiation stands and it is salient. The editors have said (not a particularly satisfying explanation, sorta like getting the toothpaste back into the tube) why they have not "withdrawn" the paper. Igor's objection to illuminating this repudiation is understandable, it is not flattering to him, but there is no justification to leaving it out.

Igor, your motives (for obfuscation and suppression of fact) are obvious. You're only deluding yourself if you think that you're coming across as objective in any way. --r b-j 17:18, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

To the benefit of those not so deeply entrenched in the struggle, can you please give the references where and when the repudiation was made? --Pjacobi 17:29, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I believe the person first announcing this repudiation is Greg Kuperberg from UC Davis on the moderated USENET newsgroup sci.physics.research- If not a hoax, it's still an embarassment. John Baez put the text on his webpage and the NYT article as supported it. I have emailed Kuperberg now inquiring to its source. The words "official repudiation" are originally Kuperberg's and the B. does respond to that post with copies of statements allegedly from the referees of the article. --r b-j 19:17, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The point is that there was no "official" repudiation (as Mr rbj likes to call it). It was an email, originally addressed to Greg Kupperberg (a mathematician who was posting lots of comments on internet) by Andrew Wray and Herman Nicolai. This email circulated on internet but that's all. So to answer your question here it is:

1. Form of the so called "repudiation" : a simple private email. That has nothing to do with any official statement.

1. Date : presumably November 1st 2002 (but the email is not dated and its circulation on internet made the day of issuance very uncertain.

1. Context : internet forums. Intentionally, it never appeared on the journal itself nor on CQG website.

This is why It is not acceptable to place it in an article that is supposed to be only supported by official quotes. --Igor

Igor,

The article comes from information to be widely believed to be factual. I didn't make this stuff up and the people who have originally put it forth have nothing to gain by bringing you down with it. Neither do i have anything to gain by it. However, you, personally, have much to gain by suppressing it. You are, by definition, not objective and you cannot be so.

I know you are struggling against feeling helpless that the content of this article is not within your control, but Wikipedia does not belong to the Bogdanoff's and you have no authority to control the content. (Neither do I, but where it is within my ability, I will not let it become a vanity article for you. I will not let these facts slide by.) You are likely accustomed to defining the content of print about you, but here, you cannot. --r b-j 19:17, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

It makes a difference whether it was a public statement of the editors or only a personal e-mail. It may be still worth mentioning f it only was a personal e-mail, but this is a weaker case. And it must be attributed. (as in "Greg Kuperberg noted in sci.physics.research, that he has received an e-mail ..."). --Pjacobi

Greg Kuperberg has replied to me via email. It doesn't nail down the original source much better (he passes it off to Steve Carlip), but his comments are quite damning of both the Bogus brothers published "physics" and of their on-line character. Not pretty.

I am now emailing Drs. Wray and Nicholi and will do Steve Carlip a little later. In case you're getting any hopes up, Igor, I don't think this is gonna get any better for you. --r b-j 00:33, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Good evening,

I am historian and I recently discovered this article with interest. I did not benefit of any particular scientific education but as a PHD in history I defintitly have some ideas about what should be considered as a valid document and what should not. Considering the lack of precisions surrounding this email presumably addressed (no recipent name, no references, not even a date) as a private correspondance to someone, it should certainly not be seen as a valid document. Here in France, when a document is not bearing any date it is not legally biding and has no status.

adb This is 82.124.82.72 (talk · contribs)

Welcome to Wikipedia, adb! I assume we all aware of the problematic status of an email as source and we are trying to find a better reference. --Pjacobi 22:25, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

So much for Igor refraining from usage of sock puppets.

May I ask who you are? --Maru (talk) 06:14, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

OH

MY

GOD

Alphonse de Bayonne, YOU there!

Geeez! This IS incredibly astounding!

If I hadn't check by myself, I wouldn't have believed it. Someone (a little bird, to put it clear-cut) told me I shall found a few nuggets in Archive 2 of Talk:Bogdanov Affair. Indeed. And guess what I've found. Your very message, indeed. Pure magic.

You wrote you discovered this article with interest. This may be the very first time you've ever discovered anything.

Just kidding.

Anyway, I'm so pleased you've at last decided to make yourself public once again, after you sweared 12 years ago to never ever publish your opinions on any subject and announced your irrevocable decision to retire because of all the fuss about your theory assuming all of the human history known so far was pure crap since there were no e-mail announcing the Big Bang and, moreover, that very non-existant e-mail did not bear any date, thus being an invalid non-existant document, thus Big Bang having no status, thus the Universe being not legally binded, THUS neither Earth nor you being real. That were the very words of your very theory and that was rather... interesting, if I may paraphrase Mr Majid.

Well, as for me, I'm now Chief Engineer of the Head Office for the Scientific Research Laboratory Department on Riemannian Cosmology at the International Institute of Mathematical Physics, located at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 1, People's Republic of China.

I applied there because I wanted to investigate their buildings for my famous colleague Pr. Yang. Dead corpse probalby, by now. Poor Old Fellow.

There are five people, including me, who are presently working at the IIMP: Arkadiusz Jadczyk 2, who comes from Cassiopeia, Igor Bogdanoff and Grichka Bogdanoff, who never come, and a gibbon, which comes from Borneo. Bogdanoff and Bogdanoff are even crankier as you are, dearest Alphonse, but still they hired the gibbon because they promised him to do so as a reward for it writting their thesis.

Let's stay in touch, mail me at yin@th-phys.edu.hk!--ProfesseurYIN 20:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Here is where i am at the moment with the CQG repudiation. From Steve Carlip:

  rbj@audioimagination.com said:
  > On the moderated USENET newsgroup, sci.physics.research , Dr. Greg
  > Kuperberg of UC Davis posted a statement (that he tells us that he
  > received from you) representing the editors of Classical and Quantum
  > Gravity regarding the publication of one of the Bogdanoff papers.  A
  > copy of this statement is appended at bottom.  This also appeared in
  > John Baez's bogdanov page and parts in a New York Times article about
  > this controversial affair.  I am appending the post at bottom.
  
  > Can you reveal the root source of this statement?  Is there an
  > "official" location of this statement issued by the editorial board of
  > the Classical and Quantum Gravity journal?  The Bogdanoff's are
  > challenging the legitimacy of this repudiation and now I am looking
  > for sources to support it.
  
  This was an official statement, written by the Editor after a discussion
  by the Editorial Board, and sent out to Board members in October 2002.  
  I don't know of an "official" location for the statement.  You might write
  directly to the journal -- the present person in charge is Judith Adams,
  judith.adams@iop.org.  (She might have to check with Andrew Wray, who
  was the IOP person in charge at the time.)
  
  My reaction at the time was this (I still think pretty much the same):
  
  > On the whole, I think too much fuss is being made about this (though I
  > may have an exaggerated view, being at the intersection of a bunch of
  > mailing lists).  If the papers are hoaxes, they're not very good ones.
  >  I've heard comparisons with Sokal's paper, but Sokal made you laugh
  > out loud; the Bogdanoffs probably won't generate more than a few
  > winces.
  
  > The referees made a mistake.  Well, accidents happen.  Referees are
  > volunteers, and get very little reward for their service to the
  > community. Sometimes they get overwhelmed---I've been asked to referee
  > eight papers, by four journals, and to review two grant proposals, for
  > two different agencies, this month---and get careless.  Sometimes they
  > don't want to admit that they don't understand a paper.  Sometimes
  > they read their own ideas into a paper.  Two referees are better than
  > one, but once  in a while they'll both make mistakes.
  
  > We can try to tighten up the system, but it's tricky.  We want to stop
  > bad papers, but we don't want to accidentally block good, original
  > papers that  are too non-mainstream to be easily reviewed.  Especially
  > in a field like quantum gravity, where no one really knows what
  > direction to go, there will be papers that slip through the cracks.
  > They usually get recognized as such and ignored.  The Bogdanov papers
  > have, as far as I know, no  citations (at least none listed in
  > Spires), and have had essentially no impact.
  
  > There was an article in last week's Nature about the publication of
  > wrong articles.  I don't have it on hand, but I rather liked a quote
  > that it ended  with, to the effect that referees give an opinion; the
  > real peer review starts after a paper is published.
  
  Steve Carlip

and from Judith Adams:

  I will be out of the office starting  20/09/2005 and will not return until
  26/09/2005.
  
  I will respond to your message when I return.
  
  Best wishes,
  
  Judith Adams
  Publisher
  Institute of Physics Publishing
  Dirac House, Temple Back
  Bristol, BS1 6BE
  United Kingdom
  E-mail: judith.adams@iop.org
  Tel: +44 (0) 1179 301212
  Fax: +44 (0) 1179 200818
  
  
  Institute of Physics
  Registered charity No. 293851
  76 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NT, England
  
  IOP Publishing Limited
  Registered in England under Registration No 467514.
  Registered Office: Dirac House, Temple Back, Bristol BS1 6BE England

I am returning the repudiation because there is nothing that indicates that it was not made. it is signed by real people. and there is nothing that indicates that it was not official. --r b-j 15:14, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

CQG repudiation was official enough to be published in Nature 420, November 2002.

Igor want some somewhat positive referrees reports to be part of the article, but what about the others reports ? Such reports are not usually published, we got one of them only because Igor himself published it. For another article (well, with an identical actual content, which is a part of the problem: it a very bad practice to send identical articles to several scientific journals), John Baez got another referee's report:

From: Eli Hawkins

Date: May 13, 2003 1:54:12 PM EDT

To: John Baez

Subject: Old Controversy

John,

Journal of Physics A finally sent me a copy of the referee report I

wrote for "THE KMS STATE OF SPACE-TIME AT THE PLANCK SCALE". It is

definitely in contrast to the other referee reports you show on your

web page. Feel free to distribute this if you want to.

- Eli

This paper is built around the idea that "at the Planck scale, the

"space-time system" is in a themodynamical equilibrium state". It is

not quite clear what the author means by this, but on page 4 he seems

to be referring to a Friedman model of a homogeneous universe with

thermal matter. He may mean that when the matter is at the Planck

temperature, it is in thermodymanic equilibrium with the geometry. He

does not explain why there should not be thermal equilibrium at all

temperatures. It may be simply that the author does not know what he

is talking about.

The main result of this paper is that this thermodynamic equilibrium

should be a KMS state. This almost goes without saying; for a quantum

system, the KMS condition is just the concrete definition of

thermodynamic equilibrium. The hard part is identifying the quantum

system to which the condition should be applied, which is not done in

this paper.

It is difficult to describe what is wrong in Section 4, since almost

nothing is right. The author seems to believe that just because an

analytic continuation of a function exists, the argument "must" be

considered a complex number. He also makes the rather obvious claims

in eq's 6 and 7 that complex numbers should be the sums of real and

imaginary parts. The remainder of the paper is a jumble of misquoted

results from math and physics. It would take up too much space to

enumerate all the mistakes: indeed it is difficult to say where one

error ends and the next begins.

In conclusion, I would not recommend that this paper be published in

this, or any, journal.

--YBM 11:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

New version of article (continued)

I'm quoting Igor's proposal:

1. Suppression (as agreed by EE GUY,) of this quote from A. Wray and H. Nicolai

"At a later time (2002), the editorial board of the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity issued a statement that said that the Bogdanoff's submission "... made it through the review process even though, in retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal." One editor said that if the Bogdanoffs' paper had reached his desk, he would have immediately sent it back saying "The article is a potpourri of the buzzwords of modern physics, that is completely incoherent.""

2. This non exact phrase :

"...the number of professional physicists who have published an opinion that the Bogdanoff paper is a hoax, "gibberish", or at best, a piece of sloppy work plagued by errors is much greater than the number of physicists who have defended the Boganoff's publication."

...should be replaced by this correct phrase :

"...many professional physicists have published on internet forums an opinion that the Bogdanoff paper is a hoax, "gibberish", or at best, a piece of sloppy work plagued by errors while some other theoretical physicists published official reports where they insist on the originality and the interest of the bogdanoff theory."

I would like to rephrase the last paragraph as follows :

"...on the Internet, many professional physicists have claimed that the Bogdanoff paper is a hoax, "gibberish", or at best, a piece of sloppy work plagued by errors, while, on official reports, other theoretical physicists have commented on the originality and the interest of the bogdanoff theory."

--CatherineV 07:45, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

You can't claim, publish, etc, anything on the Internet. Do you mean USENET, the WWW and web forums? --Pjacobi 08:39, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I do. I'm sorry, the difference has never been quite clear to me... I knew publish didn't sound right, but claim seemed appropriate enough. What about state or mention or simply write? And web sites and forums instead of Internet? --CatherineV 10:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I have modified the article on 2 points :

1. Suppression of the quote of Andrew Wray's email. Rbj has to admit that this email was issued in a very particular context and that CQG does not wish to give any "new life" to this very particular discussion that developped in 2002.

1. I have rephrased the paragraph "while other physicists etc" as proposed by Catherine. --Igor

Please clarify "official reports". --Pjacobi 09:40, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I have clarified this "offical report" point by adding this phase : "while, on official reports written by experts designated by the University of Burgundy or by the editorial boards of scientific journals, other theoretical physicists have commented on the originality and the interest of the bogdanoff theory." --Igor

Sorry that only adds to this confusion. If you can't give a coherent reference, this sentence has to go. Which official report? Author? Title? Date? Reporting to whom? Availability? --Pjacobi 10:45, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that a complete information (authors, dates, etc) would be too long to be put in one phrase of the article. I speack of the the 21 one reports written for the two thesis and the 6 theoretical physics and mathematical journals. I have names, dates, destination of reports, etc. We have two solutions:

1. Either we establish a list in the body of the article
2. We put a link to these informations

What do you think? --Igor

Which of these reports are written after CGQ email and Baez' USENET posting? Are they (at least in principe) available for verification? --Pjacobi 10:59, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Since there is more than one official report, giving the dates/names/titles in the article won't make for a very pleasant reading. I suggest adding appropriate links to the reports. --CatherineV 11:46, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I didn't ask for adding this into the article but for clarifying here. And the three most significant ones would be a good start. So please provide the information or drop the "official reports" issue. --Pjacobi 12:11, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

---

OK. Here are some elements regarding these official reports:

Prof. C. Kounnas (ENS) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 06/03/1999

Prof. S. Majid (University of Cambridge) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 09/03/1999

Prof. S. Majid (University of Cambridge) Interim Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report after defense) Date : 14/11/1999

Prof. C. Gurevitch (University of Valenciennes) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 24/05/1999

Prof. C. Kounnas (ENS) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report after defense) Date : 26/01/2000

Prof. C. Marle (University of Paris VI) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report after defense) Date : 26/01/2000

Prof. S. Majid (University of Cambridge) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report after defense) Date : 26/01/2000

Prof. C. Gurevitch (University of Valenciennes) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report after defense) Date : 26/01/2000

Prof. E. Leichtnam (ENS) Report on G.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report after defense) Date : 26/01/2000

Prof. D. Ansekmi (CERN) Report on I.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 02/03/1999

Prof. I. Antoniadis (Polytechnique) Report on I.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 05/05/1999

Prof. D. Ansekmi (CERN) Report on I.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 02/03/1999

Prof. J. Verbaarshot (Stony Brook University) Report on I.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 18/10/1999

Prof. J. Morava (John Hopkins University) Report on I.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 24/05/2002

Prof. R. Jackiw (M.I.T.) Report on I.Bogdanoff thesis for the University of Bourgogne (report before defense) Date : 11/04/2002

Report of the referee for theoretical physics journal Report for the journal "Classical & Quantum Gravity" (first referee) Date : 15/01/2001

Report of the referee n° 2 for theoretical physics journal Report for the journal "Classical & Quantum Gravity" (second referee) Date : 15/01/2001

Report of the referee n° 2 for theoretical physics journals Report for the journal "Classical & Quantum Gravity" (second referee) Date : 24/08/2001

Report of the referee for theoretical physics journalsl Report for the journal "Czechoslovak Journal of Physics" Date : 22/03/2001

Report of the referee for theoretical physics journasl Report for the journal "Annals of Physics" Date : 30/10/2001

Report of the referee for theoretical physics journals Report for the journal "Chinese Journal of Physics" Date : 03/02/2001

Report of the referee for mathematics journals Report for the journal "Chinese Annals of Mathematics" Date : 03/08/2001

So I see, all these "offical reports" are before the 22 October 2002 incidents.

It follows, that the current formulation is grossly misleading, as it can be interpreted to mean, that these "official reports" in some way repute the USENET etc. arguments.

Also, how can these reports be accessed for verification? --Pjacobi 13:36, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that, in order for them to be valid, the official reports should have been written after 22 Oct 2002. May I ask why? All opinions, whether they were voiced before or after that date, are based on the same elements/texts. Nothing new happened on 22 Oct 2002 as far as the object of dispute is concerned, right ? So why can't these preceding reports contradict later comments ?

As for the reports, some of them can be found here : Theses reports. The link is given is the article, via the Theses and Publications link. Perhaps this should be made clearer. --CatherineV 16:34, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Before/after Oct 2002: That is not a question of validity, but whether these reports are on topic here. We are looking for scientists who supported the Bogdanovs after the hoax allegations. For verifiability, reports on the Bogdanov website are worthless. --Pjacobi 20:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Look, I'm not going to fight anyone who says that the conclusions to be drawn from the reports are mitigated but please don't say they're not on topic. As for the link, the pdf document can be hosted on another site, if it suits you, but I doubt it will change its impact, one way or another. --CatherineV 07:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Most of the reports were written before 2002. But there is also one report that was made after october 2002: the one dated december 5, 2004, for Journal of Algebra.

But beyond these precisions, I think Catherine's remark is right. The object did not change after 2002.

Regarding the email of CQG, I maintain that it was a "non official" one. If it had been "official", it would have been published in the journal itself. It was not the case because (for many good reasons) CQG did not want this email to become "official". This is even written by Kupperger himself in the "comment page" created by rbj on Wikipedia. Here is what Kupperberg wrote about this email :

"I got the announcement from Wray and Nicolai via Steve Carlip , who is (or at least was) an associate editor of the journal. Steve called it "official", but it sounds like they only distributed it by e-mail, and maybe not very widely so."

So it is quite clear : Kupperberg himself (who was the one who passed this mail to Baez) does not qualify it as "official". Why? Because it is not the case.

Therefore I suppressed it from the article and I ask rbj to become reasonable. I hope he will understand the situation and not create another "revert war" likely to block the article again. --Igor

Here are somme comments from the people who write the 'reports' (more to come on this later) :

Shahn Majid (who even had to protest publicly on Usenet about Igor and Grichka abuses) :

"The french version of Grichka's thesis report is un unauthorized and partly forged by the Bogdanovs. Here 'interesting' has been translated by 'important', there "a draft of a mathematical construction" by "the first mathematical construction of ...", later an added word proves that Bogdanov does not even understand his own draft of results"

"A thesis report should not be published, each word is choosed, and what is not said is as important as what is said"

"This report is about a very weak student who showed an impressive determitation to obtain his Ph. D."

(Source, french scientific magazine "Ciel & Espace", later confirmed loudly by Majid)

Antoniadis

''Their scientific language was only an appearance behind which they did hide an incompetence and an ignorance of physcics, even on basics"

(Source : Le Monde - 12/2002)

AFAIK there are no official report in the Ph. D. process from Verbaashot (I checked it at University of Burgundy). I don't know where is the sample provided by Igor coming from. --YBM 19:45, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I am surprised by the determination of rbj to "officialize" a document that CQG itself would not "recycle" nowadays. In October 2002, we had lots of conversations with many responsibles of the journal. The discussion about a possible "hoax" perpetrated by us against theoretical physics was going wild. In such a crazy context, CQG (which was accused to have published this "hoax") had not much choice. We know why they decided to issue this email. And (grace to certain conversations) we also know why they did not give to it any "official" status: no date, no reference, no publication in the journal or anywhere else. This was intentional. If the editorial had had the objective to make it "official" they would have published it in the journal itself. Rbj has to accept this instead of reverting the article all the time. --Igor

Protection of the article

Considering the dishonest presentation of the CQG email which is used by rbj (and now by another "experimented Wiki user") as an "official proof" when it is obviously not the case, I invite the moderators to consider a protection of the page. Under the form imposed by rbj and his friends this page is not acceptable. Before going back to a revert war, I propose to freeze the article under its objective version (the version that was agreed by pjacobi). I revert it to this version. --Igor

I am repeating only what Steve Carlip (who is a well known and respected physicist) said only yesterday: that the statement was "official" and it was distributed to all of the CQG editorial board members (including himself) in October 2002 following an extensive discussion one month prior regarding the paper. I am not making it up. We will see what the journal does with this when the CQG contact person (Judith Adams) returns in about a week. Every time Igor says it is "not official" he is simply making it up. Notice he does not deny that the words were said (or typed). Igor is the dishonest person and his track record, from the very beginning of this, shows it.

Again, i have nothing to gain or lose by how this story is portrayed. Igor and his brother have much to gain or lose, and that is fundamentally why he is not NPOV. --r b-j 02:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

You cannot claim being neutral yourself rbj, hardly, and your insistency on that matter crave an explication. I would like to know why you absolutely insist on having this mail on when proven twice unusable to that purpose, once by an historian, and once by Igor with first hand informations about the people who edited it in the first place and their reason to don't date this mail.

For the dileman presented by pjacobi, regarding the report made after the hoax accusations, well you see, plenty talked and doomed, but none did actually read what it was about! Therefore the problem. But those who did read those thesis agree about their quality. So I think that we should let this question be resolved by a specialist in Theoretical physics/Cosmology, and let the choosen person study the thesis and give its opinion about it on Wikipédia, This way all questions will be adressed once and for all, and all problems and dilemna will be solved. The Affair builds on the assumption of the thesis being an hoax or not, and on the assumptions of the lack of "basic knowledge" of the Bogdanovs brothers, as it has been phrased by some. Instead to sing in the empty and to parrots the more clever, lets' ask a few people with real insight in the matter for their non official or official vue of the matter.

So, having talked like crasy for weeks, months, and year about all knowing mens, and their opinions positive and or negative on the thesis, where are they now? And will this person be labelled pro or contra Bogdanovian, making his statement very true or very untrue?

There is only one way to disolve any doubt about this affair and it is to ask the right people to do the right thing. --XAL 09:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The pre-hoax reports bear no real significance, because their existence (in some form) is implied by the very fact, that the brothers got their degree and their papers published. The actual wording of the reports can (as of now) not be used, because no verfiable source exists. --Pjacobi 09:47, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The sources of the reports are quite clear : dates, names, signatures of authors etc. It is certainely more verifiable than the so called "email of CQG". --Igor

I don't know your definition of "source". In my definition of source, there should be information how to verify these. --Pjacobi 12:43, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I still don't understand. Here we are, forever debating on the merit of two theses, but the scientific reports drafted on these theses, by people who've actually (this is a good one) read them, at least partially, bear no significance. So let me sum it up. A dozen scientists decide that these two guys deserve their degrees. Then out of the blue, someone shouts "this is a hoax". A long and tedious controversy starts. But we decide not to care about the opinions of the first dozen physicists who made it all possible. Gee, I don't envy these people. First, they were poor reviewers; now they simply don't exist. I bet you they were never even born. --CatherineV 12:01, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

The cry hoax was load and gave a large debate, because the opinions of the first dozen physicists were postive. I.e. because the Bogdanovs got their degree and their articles in a peer reviewed publication. Without this, everything would ghave been a non-event, nothing more than a string theory version of Time Cube.

But they got their degree and their articles, and there was this large "Hoax!" turmoil, now what? Which citeable support did they get after "Havoc!" was cried. OK, the lukewarm comment by Motl (perhaps made to be sure, that he diagrees with Woit als in this issue). Other? --Pjacobi 12:43, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

"The cry hoax was load and gave a large debate, because the opinions of the first dozen physicists were postive."

Okay, but then let's say so. All I'm asking is for the reports to be mentioned and not to consider them off topic. We're telling a story here, and the official reports are a part of it. --CatherineV 17:58, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Reversing the chain of events

There are other positive statements and we are now collecting them.

Meanwhile, I would like to explain why the last version reverted by Turnbull is false and cannot be published.

1. When it is written: In October 2002 the Editorial Board of the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity issued the a statement ostensibly repudiating the publication of the paper:

This is not true. To be "liable", this statement should have been signed by all the members of the Editorial Board and duly signed. Not only it was not signed or dated by anyone but we have a simple email that was sent to Kupperberg who send it to Baez. Moreover, this document was never dated. All we know that it started to circulate november 1st (and NOT in october). This is quite important : this email was issued because of the "hoax discussion". Not for any other reason. Our papers were published in 2001. If CQG would have had any problems with it, they would have written a statement long before.

2. When it is written: This statement issued by the journal immediately attracted worldwide attention, both in the physics community and in the international popular press.

It is not true. This phrase is reversing the chain of events. It is NOT the statment issued by the journal in november 2002 that attracted worldwide attention : it was the question created by Baez on Usenet 10 days before, on October 22. In fact, the email issued by Wray and Nicolaï was not the origin but only the CONSEQUENCE of the discussion that exploded between 22 and 24 of October. It is simply false to create another a chain of events in oder to make the effect preceeding the cause.

3. The simple fact that this email was a consequence of the frenetic discussion about our "hoax" explains the embarrasment of Andrew Wray and the fact that this mail never had any "official existence".

For these precise reasons (point 1. 2 and 3) I have modified the article again. --Igor

Listen Igor,

The CQG statement is:

1. relevant

It's not about anybody else here. It is precisely on-topic.

2. salient

With a repudiation of a paper of yours that that very journal published, at least you cannot claim that you're mainstream science. That leaves protoscience or fringe science or pseudoscience or junk science.

There's some cover here for you, Igor (and I was trying to give you some by leaving these links in the ==See also== section). You can tell everybody that you're Protoscience just like Einstein was 100 years ago. And someday your stuff will be in the textbooks. Maybe even, someday, a Nobel prize. You can get away with that.

But you just cannot make any claim to mainstream currently nor three years ago and the CQG repudiation and the rest of affair (NYT articles, web pages, USENET discussion in which you participated) is sufficient to establish that.

So you have to pick a category other than "mainstream science" and go with that.

3. factual

Steve Carlip and Greg Kuppenberg are a reputable physicist and mathematician. I don't think Kupperberg withdrew his post of the CQG statement nor has Carlip said it's anything other than an "official statement". These guys are widely respected and I'm sure do not risk that by making anything up. CQG has defined their relationship to you.

Let's be clear, Igor, are you claiming the statement was never made by the Editorial Board nor written by Wray and Nicholi? --r b-j 23:16, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I have edited the article as follows: The quote was ridiculously long and set a bad precedent. Soon we'll start quoting everyone that ever had a say in the matter, and the article will be 100 pages long. The paragraph starting with "This question immediately..." refers to Niedermeier's mail, not CQG's paper. --CatherineV 08:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Look rbj, I don't lose my temper quickly but you are crossing the line here. Stop reverting brainlessly and please consider the above. My edit did include your factual, relevant salient document, except it shortened it to within reasonable limits (will you please spare a thought for readers?!). Next, you put your factual, relevant, salient quote in the wrong place. The sequence doesn't make sense: the factual, relevant, salient document is not the question that immediately arose curiosity worldwide. And that, too, is a f-a-c-t. --CatherineV 14:37, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

No, that's an opinion. What sequence makes sense is not a factual issue in the same sense as whether or not Drs. Wray and Nicolai have written and issued the CQG statement on behalf of the Editorial Board of CQG. That is a rhetorical misuse of the term.

I have originally only included a very short two sentence synopsis of the statement. Igor (or his supporters or sock puppets, who can tell?) deleted it. The administrators Nicholas Turnbull and Bishonen wrote and included short synopses, Igor (or his supporters or sock puppets, who can tell?) deleted them. At first, in all three cases, I reverted back to the shortened statements (what I or Turnbull or Bishonen wrote) and Igor (or his supporters or sock puppets, who can tell?) deleted them. It is Igor (or you, if you are supporting him) that are unreasonable. The CQG statement is factual, relevant, and salient and Igor will not accept any representation of it. That being the case, then I insist that the unvarnished statement be included so that no one can accuse me or anyone else of coloring the facts. The CQG statement is what it is and you and Igor and the more mentally-ill supporters and the sock puppets have to accept it. --r b-j 15:03, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Certainly not Mr "rbj". You are manipulating the chain of events with a twisted presentation of facts. If the reader believed what you wrote, he would think that the CQG statement was issued BEFORE the mail of Niedermaier and the Usenet discussion created by John Baez. It is not exact. Therefore Catherine's presentation is right and you are proved wrong. All the information (including CQG statement) is present in the new version of the article. So stop reverting it frenetically, please. You are not acting as a normal contributor, you fall in the hole of your obsessions and you are loosing everyone's time. If you continue like this, we will formally ask your banishment.

Why not ask specialists in theoretical physic to read those thesis and give their opinion about it? I don't see why nor how a new opinion about it has to be ignore all together, it will in fact help to enlighten the subject all together. I will suggest Professor Holger Beck Nielsen, from the institue of theoretical Physic of Copenhague, and Stephen W. Hawking for the english side. I would like to hear some answers about this please. --XAL 19:41, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Where is the abstract? --80.9.133.82 21:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Libelous accusations and insults

Could anybody explain to this Marudubshinki newbie concerning the "Bogdanov Affair", that:

1. I'm not a sock puppet of the Bogdanov brothers (anybody who knows a minimum this affair can vouch for it).
2. He should inquire a little, when he starts to take part to an affair, before accusing people without knowing anything about them.
3. Whatever he thinks about people, he cannot insult them by calling them "bullshit", as he did with me, [here]. On his talk page he answers modestly to rjb, who thanked him for his contribution: "I was asked as a favor, and I think it behooves me to intervene in another edit war anyway with my unique style." OK, Maru, you can be very proud about it, but everybody doesn't accept your "unique style", especially when it's used by you for insulting. So: calm down, now! --Laurence67 21:40, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Modesty is a virtue. And don't claim you been involved for a year or whatever, when your edit history stretches all the way back to the prehistoric date of... September 6. And I notice you've ignored the reason for my reverts. I said quite clearly that removing the disputed material because you claim the date makes them irrelevant is wrong, because while the message itself was from November, the contents strongly implied the repudiation was formulated in October (as the message claims that it was being seriously discussed in September by the board), which renders your reason moot. Also, you might want to go read the libel article. While we are at it, why don't you provide references for assertions such as "An indication of the impact that these theories may have on theoretical physics can be inferred by the references made to them in subsequent papers by other theoretical physicists (5 references today on spires and arXiv, which is a comparatively average number since 64% of published papers do not cause any quotes)."- taken from this diff. --Maru (talk) 21:58, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

And don't claim you been involved for a year or whatever, when your edit history stretches all the way back to the prehistoric date of... September 6.

Sorry already, I'm going to traumatize you, but that's the moment of truth : there is a life outside Wikipedia!!! Are you OK, I can carry on? So: I've taken part to this affair for more than one year on several forums (web and Usenet), you understand? So don't call me a liar without knowing anything about me... and about the affair itself! Try to be a little humble, I'm sure you can do it! --Laurence67 22:25, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

But you can't prove it. So I shall make like a Logical Positivist and ignore your claims of long-expertise as unverifiable. And no, I don't know how I can contain such arrogance and awesomeness- it would not seem humanly possible... --Maru (talk) 22:52, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Dear Marudubshinki,

I have just read your post and would like to comment on 2 of your remarks.

1. Date of CQG statement.

When you write that the contents strongly implied the repudiation was formulated in October it is not true. This email was issued after the "explosion" of the affair. This decision was discussed on oct 29 between Wray and Julie Stott in order to find the best compromise. We had numerous conversations with CQG this very day and I can assure you that nothing was decided before the "affair" was created by Niedermaier/Baez. Therefore when you publish a text where you imply, without any doubt, that this text was issued in october and that it was at the origin of the "affair", you are inversing the chain cause/effects and misrepresenting the reality.

1. Quote of CQG report.

If you decide to publish "in extenso" the CQG email, then you have to accept as well the CQG reports for publication in the article. This is the key of the problem. Without the reports, the CQG publication is partial and the article is not balanced. --Igor

So you are saying that the email is misleading? (I'm referring to this excerpt; one of you would appear to be wrong):

"The paper was discussed extensively at the annual Editorial Board meeting in September 2002, and there was general agreement that it should not have been published. Since then several steps have been taken to further improve the peer review process in order to improve the quality assessment on articles submitted to the journal and reduce the likelihood that this could happen again."

To me, this implies that the repudiation was formulated either late September, or early October. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "CQG publication"; are you referring to the positive evaluations by the peer reviewer? --Maru (talk) 18:42, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

1. They never took the decision to repudiate the paper in september (or even not later since they would have withdrawn it. They had to say this (september 2002) because they had to justifiy this email. But the report of this meeting deos not bear any information that would confirm it. Not even an allusion. Beleive us : this mail was issued in november. Not in september.

1. I am talking about the referree's positive reports which allowed publication in CQG. Without this report, the Wikipedia article is not balanced (as agreed earlier by the administrator "EE Guy" and others). --Igor

Hmm. So you are contending that when the email was was posted to the newsgroup (which was in November), they were forced by public opinion of the Bogdanov publications to repudiate the approvals and publications of the thesis; and that November was the real date of their decision to repudiate; and that the statements internal to the posting, saying they were discussing repudiation as far back as September were self-serving lies intended to lessen the damage to their reputation by claiming they recognized the problem early on. Is that what you are contending? --Maru (talk) 03:34, 25 September 2005 (UTC)