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Bogdanov affair

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Igor and Grichka Bogdanov.

The Bogdanov Affair is an academic controversy regarding the merit of a series of theoretical physics papers written by Igor and Grichka Bogdanov (or Bogdanoff), and the academic credentials awarded based on the content of those publications. The Bogdanovs' work, some of which has been published in reputable scientific journals, purports to encompass quantum groups, KMS theory, and topological field theory, culminating in a proposition of a theory for describing what occurred at the time of, and even before, the Big Bang.

The controversy started on October 22, 2002 when accusations were made on Usenet newsgroups that the Bogdanovs' work was devoid of scientific content, and that it was a hoax similar to the Sokal Affair; this lead to commentators questioning the strength of the peer-review system that the scientific community and academia use to determine the merit of publications.

Igor and Grichka Bogdanov have been widely known in France as television show presenters for a few decades, presenting television programs relating to popular science and science fiction; their work includes the programs "Temps X" and, more recently "Rayons X". These shows have been highly successful in France and have attracted a large audience. When the controversy started, the status of the Bogdanovs as television personalities in France may have helped spread the controversy from specialized scientists to mainstream media and online fora, where the Bogdanovs have consistently aserted their work as both valid and serious.

Origin of the affair

According to the Big Bang theory, the universe originated in an extremely dense and hot state (bottom). Since then, space itself has expanded with the passage of time, creating and carrying the galaxies with it. Science tells us nothing about what happened from the time of the Big Bang until 10-43 seconds, a concept known as Planck time. After this, the time is grouped into epochs. At first, these are very short periods; of the seven epochs described below, the first five together last for three minutes. The Bogdanov publications purport to have discovered what had happened before this earliest moment and even before the moment of the Big Bang itself.


In 1999 and 2002 Grichka and Igor Bogdanov obtained Ph.D. degrees on the basis of two theses (Grichka in mathematics and Igor in theoretical physics) from the University of Bourgogne. In 1999 Grichka Bogdanov received the rare, lowest-possible passing grade of "honorable" for his thesis Quantum fluctuations of the signature of the metric at the Planck scale. On the same day, Igor Bogdanov failed the defense of his thesis Topological Origin of Inertia. His advisor subsequently agreed to allow him to obtain a doctorate if Igor could publish three peer-reviewed journal articles. After publishing the requisite articles, Igor successfully defended his thesis three years later on a different topic under the responsability of two co-advisors Topological State of Spacetime at the Planck Scale, also receiving the same lowest-possible passing grade of "honorable." The two brothers published a total of six papers in physics and mathematics journals, including Annals of Physics and Classical and Quantum Gravity, which are both reviewed by referees.


After reading the abstracts of both theses, German physicist Max Niedermaier considered them to be pseudoscience, consisting entirely of dense technical jargon written in a manner similar to the Sokal Affair. On 22 October 2002, Niedermaier sent an email to this effect to physicist Ted Newman, and the email was then widely distributed. An eventual recipient of the email, the American mathematical physicist John Baez, created a discussion thread on the Usenet newsgroup sci.physics.research titled "Physics bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" which quickly grew to hundreds of posts.

This controversy immediately attracted worldwide attention, both in the physics community and in the international popular press. Following Niedermaier, most of the participants in the Usenet discussion thread created by Baez also made the assumption that the work was a deliberate hoax similar to the Sokal Affair, which the Bogdanov brothers have continued to deny firmly. After hearing that the Bogdanovs disputed that their work was a deliberate hoax, Niedermaier issued a private and public apology to the Bogdanov brothers on 24 October 2002 for having so assumed from the outset. However, he has not endorsed the validity or merit of the work in question.

Reports and comments from scientists

Thesis reports

The following are excerpts from the 15 Thesis Reports of Igor and Grichka Bogdanov:

Roman Jackiw, from MIT: "The author proposes a novel, speculative solution to the problem of the pre-Big-Bang initial singularity ... the thesis and the published papers provide an excellent introduction to these ideas, and can serve as a useful springboard for further research in this area".

Costas Kounnas, from ENS Paris: "I found this work very interesting, with many new ideas about quantum gravity ... the author proposes an original and interesting cosmological scenario.".

Jack Morava, from the Johns Hopkins University: "the thesis work of Igor Bogdanov is of great interest, dominated by new ideas with fundamental physical implications in cosmology and in many other fields connected with gravitation."

Published papers

In May 2001, the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity (CQG) reviewed an article for publication from I&G Bogdanov, entitled "Topological theory of the initial singularity of spacetime". One of the referee reports stated that the article was "Sound, original, and of interest. With revisions I expect the paper to be suitable for publication." The paper was accepted seven months later.

However, after the publication of the article and the publicity surrounding the controversy, the editorial board of the journal issued an apology, stating that "in retrospect, [the paper] does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal."

In 2001, the Czechoslovak Journal Of Physics accepted an article from Igor Bogdanov, entitled "Topological Origin of Inertia". The referee report concluded: "In my opinion the results of the paper can be considered as original ones. I recommend the paper for publication but in a revised form."

File:ChineseJournalOfPhysics.jpg

In 2002, the Chinese Journal of Physics published "The KMS state of spacetime at the Planck scale", from Igor Bogdanov. The report stated that "the viewpoint presented in this paper can be interesting as a possible approach of the Planck scale physics." Some corrections were requested.

Not all referals were positive. Eli Hawkins, acting as a referee for the Journal of Physics A, suggested rejecting one of the Bogdanovs' papers: "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."

Other criticism

After the start of the controversy on Usenet, most comments were critical of the Bogdanovs' work. The following are examples:

John Baez commented that their work "is a mishmash of superficially plausible sentences containing the right buzzwords in approximately the right order. There is no logic or cohesion in what they write."

Peter Woit: "The Bogdanoffs' work is significantly more incoherent than just about anything else being published. But the increasingly low standard of coherence in the whole field is what allowed them to think they were doing something sensible and to get it published."

Jacques Distler: "The Bogdanov's papers consist of buzzwords from various fields of mathematical physics, string theory and quantum gravity, strung together into syntactically correct, but semantically meaningless prose."

Nobel Laureate Georges Charpak said in a television show : "The Bogdanovs are inexistent in Science."

Some comments were more positive:

Lubos Motl: "[T]he Bogdanoff brothers are proposing something that has, speculatively, the potential to be an alternative story about quantum gravity ... What they are proposing is a potential new calculational framework for gravity. I find it unlikely that these things will work..." [1]

Implications for the peer-review system

Before the widespread hoax discussion, the reports on Bogdanovs' theses and most of the journal referees' reports spoke favorably of their work, describing it as original and containing interesting ideas. This is at the root of the questions raised regarding the efficacy of the peer-review system that the scientific community and academia use to determine the merit of submitted manuscripts for publication: can over-worked and unpaid refeeres thouroughly judge the value of a paper in the little time they can afford to spend on it? Questions were also raised in sci.physics.research about the fact that some aspects of theoretical physics have become so disconnected from reality, extensively relying on unproven conjectures, that verifying many statements written in published papers has become impossible.

Regarding the Bogdanov publications, physicist Steve Carlip remarked:

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 ... 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.

Whereas theoretical physicist Lubos Motl commented:

...it does not surprise me much that [one of the referees of the thesis and for "Annals of Physics"] 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.)

But Motl also notes that:

all physicists seem to agree that
  • the detailed structure of the paper (and very similar papers published elsewhere) 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 (and other things) to be sold well in France and elsewhere - which is at least one of the reasons why they would continue to say that the papers were serious even if they were not[2]

Internet Discussions

The Bogdanov affair has been discussed extensively on the Internet; these discussions have taken place on various newsgroups and web fora, and the Bogdanov brothers have often participated in the discussions. At the start of the affair, in the moderated group sci.physics.research, Igor Bogdanov denied that their published papers were a hoax, but when asked precise questions regarding mathematical details in the papers, failed to convince most participants that they had any real scientific value.

Participants in the discussions were particularly unconvinced by the affirmation in one of the Bogdanov's publications that "whatever the orientation, the plane of oscillation of Foucault's pendulum is necessarily aligned with the initial singularity marking the origin of physical space." Attempts to explain such a peculiar observation were extremely unsuccessful, as were the attempts to explain the elementary error that the Foucault pendulum "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics."


At the beginning of 2004, Igor Bogdanov began to post on French Usenet physics groups both under his real name, and several pseudonyms, and later acknowledging doing so. Most pseudonyms pretended to be physicists or mathematicians, defended the Bogdanovs' work, and sometimes insulted their critics, such as Nobel Laureate Georges Charpak [3]. A few participants in these discussions responded in kind, specifically accusing the Bogdanovs of evading scientific criticism, or lying about what they actually wrote or said.


French threads of discussion on the Affair are notoriously heated to the point of becoming an affair within the affair. Some recurrent participants have become characters in their own right and a permanent feeling of anger and revenge emanate from all discussions. Practically all topics have been terminated by moderators as it became impossible to avoid insults, ad hominem attacks or (at best) sarcastic deviations. One may wonder whether, if it weren't for the addiction that the topic generates and the consequent obsession to maintain it alive, the Affair would not have been a flash in the pan.

The HKU confusion

For months, the domain name of the International Institute of Mathematical Physics created by the Bogdanovs, th-phys.edu.hk, stirred a confusion among forum participants as to a possible link with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In that context, the participation of an unidentified "Prof Yang" from Hong Kong didn't help: he wrote to physicists John Baez, Jacques Diestler and Peter Woit; journalist Dennis Overbye from the New York Times; and on numerous physics blogs and fora, to defend the Bogdanovs' work. He signed: "Professor L. Yang - Theoretical Physics Laboratory - International Institute of Mathematical Physics - HKU/Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong." using an e-mail address from th-phys.edu.hk.

The Bogdanovs have claimed several times that the "domain name "th-phys.edu.hk" was officially owned by Hong Kong University." [4] In fact, the DNS record of th-phys.edu.hk did list the HKUST street address, but had been registered by Igor Bogdanov, and e-mail messages from Professor L. Yang originated from a dial-up IP address in Paris, France.

These facts raised suspicions that Professor L. Yang was in fact a pseudonym of the Bogdanovs. However, Igor Bogdanov has maintained that Professor Yang is a real person, a mathematical physicist with expertise in KMS theory and that, as a friend of his, he was posting anonymously from Igor's apartment.

Following this pattern, another academic domain name was also registered in Latvia (http://phys-maths.edu.lv/), hosting the Mathematical Center of Riemannian Cosmosology. Again, this apparent educational institution was registered by Igor Bogdanoff. However, in this case, no claim was made of an affiliation with an official University.

Media Involvement

Igor and Grichka presented their theory among other cosmological scenarios on their own TV show and were frequently invited to numerous talk shows on French TV channels to promote their book. Several mainstream media outlets in the press and on the Internet covered the Affair (Europe 1 [5], Acrimed, Ciel & Espace, Le Monde [6]).

One of their thesis reporters, Shahn Majid, claimed on Usenet post that Grichka Bogdanov was intentionally misquoting his opinion on the way the interview he gave to a journalist from the magazine Ciel & Espace was eventually transcripted.

The Bogdanovs sued, at the beginning of 2005, the magazine Ciel & Espace [7] over the publication of an critical article entitled "The Mystification of the Bogdanovs." The trial should take place at the end of 2005 or the beginning of 2006.

Followups to the Bogdanovs' work

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. The Bogdanov papers are cited a total of 3 times on the SPIRES database for 6 published papers and one unpublished preprint). This low number of citations may imply that the general theoretical physics community does not consider the papers as useful or valid.

The Bogdanovs have not published any scientific paper since 2003, but they created with theoretical physicist Arkadiusz Jadczyk the International Institute of Mathematical Physics in order to study and develop their theories. Several papers were published by Arkadiusz Jadczyk within the framework of this Institute.

File:AvantLeBgBang.jpeg

In 2004, the Bogdanovs published a successful popular science 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 Rayons X created by the Bogdanovs in 2002, a 90-minute special cosmology broadcast went on the air on the French channel France 2 in August 2004. Both the book and television show have been criticized for elementary scientific inaccuracies. Examples of such inaccuricies in the book that the golden number phi is transcendental (the Bogdanovs have maintained that this particular point is due to their book editor)& that the limit of a decreasing sequence is always 0. Despite these criticisms, many in France admire the Bogdanovs' ability to bring the subjects of cosmology and relativity to a wider audience.

The Bogdanov Affair may have long-term consequences in the world of theoretical physics. Media articles have cast a negative light on this field, simplistically hinting that it has become impossible to distinguish a valid paper from a hoax. Many comments have been made on the possible shortcomings of the referal system for published articles in this highly speculative field of research, and also on the criteria for acceptance of a thesis and subsequent delivery of a Ph.D degree. More recently, some opinions defended the idea that Bogdanovs work, while out of mainstream theoretical physics, could be a catalyst that may refresh points of view and induce new solutions to currently unsolved questions.

See also

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