Talk:Bogdanov affair

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

_______

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

Are you guys ready for the article to be unprotected?
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Tips for showing who's saying what on the page

Tips on formatting posts:

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.
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.)
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

__________________________________________________________________________

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