Talk:Bogdanov affair/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions about Bogdanov affair. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 4

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Discussion continued

Igor, do you honestly think that anything written above is remotely believable? Here are verifiable accounts that directly contradict you:

"In view of the imprecisenesses, I insisted on the same mark (passing) as Grichka [for Igor's thesis]." [1]

"Both students received passing marks of honorable, unusual in a system that almost always awards très honorable to successful candidates. The passing mark 'only happens to the worst students -- the students you only want to get out of the system,' says Mr. Verbaarschot." [2]

"Igor defended successfully his thesis on June 8, 2002, getting also the "honorable" mark for reasons that it is not up to us to judge." [3]

The first statement was attributed to Sternheimer. The second by a journalist investigating the story. The third -- and by far my favorite -- is written by you. (I realize that you wrote that Ms. Knight-Jadczyk modified your words but it is clear from the single sentence I quoted that your response was not written by a native-English speaker). Your ability to stand against the odds -- indeed reality -- would make Winston Churchill proud.

By the way, you also wrote earlier: "I am sorry but what you wrote about the Foucault Pendulum is not scientifically right. In spite of what you say, there is a problem with the behaviour of the Pendulum. This was at the origin of March's principle."

I, and anybody else who took any Physics, would love to hear how a Foucault Pendulum isn't well described by mechanics. But I know better than to get my hopes up. (In case a reader is unaware, it is simple to predict the state of a Foucault Pendulum using classical mechanics... all you need is F=ma and Coriolis Force. If the pendulum is really fast, then we use relativity.)

Here is the entire post at Jun 14 2004, 5:15 AM where you used a pseudonym to insult Charpak (you later admitted the pseudonym was yourself) on fr.rec.tv.programmes

Alors je te laisse bien rigoler en compagnie de Charpak. Si tu étais un peu plus au jus de sa réputation, tu comprendrais peut-être que ce prix nobel n'aurait jamais du lui être attribué. Charpak est à la retraite, c'est un bonhomme vieillissant et aigri, dont l'arrogance fait qu'il est détesté par tout le monde (y compris ses anciens collègues). Cites moi une seule de ses soit-disant découvertes. Il n'a jamais rien fait de vraiment important et il ne compte pas dans le monde la physique théorique. C'est un expérimentateur. Il ne connait rien aux mathématiques. Encore moins aux groupes quantiques. Alors qui est-il pour juger des travaux des Bogdanoff?

PS (Les bogdanoff n'ont jamais dit qu'ils avaient inventé internet. Ils ont simplement dit qu'en 1980 (soit très longtemps avant que le mot internet n'ait été créé) ils ont fait une prédiction dans leur émission temps x concernant un réseau d'ordinateurs connectés entre eux sous le nom d'internex. Ca c'est la vérité. Mais est-ce que la vérité vous importe vraiment? )

Here is my translation of parts of your post:

"his Nobel prize should have never been awarded to him... Charpak is an old and sour man, whose arrogance makes him hated by everyone (including his former colleagues).... He never did anything important and he does not matter in the world of theoretical physics.... He doesn't know anything about math.... PS (the Bogdanoff never said that they had invented Internet..."

(Sorry I had to translate that last statement... it made me laugh! And, no, it doesn't sound better in French.)

You wrote above "If youi read it again you will see that Charpak was not the real issue of this discussion." True, it was the value of the Bogdanoffs' work. You continue to defy reality above and wrote "this answer was even not directed to Charpak but to YBM and his friends." Wow.

I am not demanding that you admit that you still insult Charpak but simply take responsibility for your actions. Your vaudeville excuses were amusing... now they're merely embarassing.

--EE Guy 20:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The three-revert rule - a general announcement to all editors here

I have noticed a widespread lack of attention to the three-revert rule from both the critics and supporters editing this article, and I would like to let everyone know that from now on all violations of the three-revert rule made in editing this article will be followed up with a 24 hour block without further warning.

The three-revert rule states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours, either in whole or in part (see WP:3RR for the policy).

Thank you for your cooperation.

Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 20:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Problems with Predicting Pendulums

EE Guy, You can call my "Vaudeville excuses" by all the names you wish; but you cannot deny that I am sincere and determined not to open a new front with Charpak.

Now, I will answer again to your observations.

:Igor, do you honestly think that anything written above is remotely believable? Here are verifiable accounts that directly contradict you:

"In view of the imprecisenesses, I insisted on the same mark (passing) as Grichka [for Igor's thesis]." [4]

Igor's comment : I never said that Sternheimer did not write this. At this time, it was decided that there would not be any "difference" between Grichka and myself. It was only later that we realized that (contrarely to Grichka's) the "Honorable" was not mentionned on the thesis report. The reason is that a rule of the 25 apr. 2002 of the Ministry of Education predicted that the mention should not appear on the thesis diploma but only mentionned in the thesis report. Once more, mine does not bear this (or any) mention : only the report on the thesis itself. That's why Sternheimer wrote this afterwards. To finish with this argument, do you want me to send you this report?

::I, and anybody else who took any Physics, would love to hear how a Foucault Pendulum isn't well described by mechanics. But I know better than to get my hopes up. (In case a reader is unaware, it is simple to predict the state of a Foucault Pendulum using classical mechanics... all you need is F=ma and Coriolis Force. If the pendulum is really fast, then we use relativity.)

It is strange that you read my remark that way. I never said that one cannot predict the Foucault Pendulum using classical mechanics. In fact, it was done by Foucault himself in 1851 using Newton's basic physics. Did I ever write or said the contrary? Certainely not.

If you had read the introduction to the CJP article, you may have found that my concern was not to predict the behaviour of a Foucault Pendulum but to address the question of inertia. Do you think that this phenomenon can be fully described by classical mechanics? The answer is NO. Even Newton had a major problem with it (he imagined the "bucket experiment" precisely for this reason). I maintain that inertia has been presented by many physicists (Mach, Barbour, Sciama, Dicke, etc) or mathematicians (J.P. Vigier) as one of the "unsolved mysteries of modern physics". I wrote in the article that my point of view is that this important question, which is well formulated in the context of Mach's principle, cannot be resolved or even understood in the framework of conventional field theory.

Why does it have an infinite range? Why is its propagation instantaneous?

To address these questions, I suggested a novel approach, a direct outcome of the topological field theory proposed by Edward Witten in 1988. According to this approach, beyond the interpretation proposed by Mach, I consider inertia as a topological field, linked to the topological charge Q = 1 of the "singular zero size gravitational instanton" which, according to our views, can be identified with the initial singularity of space-time in the standard model (also described as a topological invariant).

Of course, speaking of "topological amplitudes" to explain inertia is not something current. This is why it was not well understood during our discussions in 2002. But it does not mean that the "topological contribution" should not be considered as a valid approach. This is all I write and maintain.

Now concerning Charpak. You wrote :I am not demanding that you admit that you still insult Charpak but simply take responsibility for your actions.

The best proof that I take responsability is 1) that I recognized using a pseudo, and 2) that I continue to debate with you about my reasons not to publish any negative sentences about Charpak in the context of this article.

I maintain that what I wrote against Charpak was the consequence of a very particular context. When I said hereabove that Charpak himself "was not the real issue of it", it was absolutly true. My real "adversaire" in these heated discussions was not Charpak : it was indeed YBM himself.

As it is still the case today. Because it is YBM who decided to "recycle" Charpak into this article. He is the one that has decided to target us (Grichka and I) and whoever or whatever appears as "negative" (Charpak eventually) is a good element to satisfy is objectives.

This is the reason I do not wish to perpetuate any YBM's elements (or as few as possible) into this article. As I do not wish to perpetuate an artificial and sad conflict with Charpak that I truly respect.

I hope you understand this.

Igor

I modified the article along my convictions. All the reasons of my modifications are explained in details here above. Is it a fair thing to revert my point of view without taking in consideration that I may have some good reasons to defend it? A good example of it is this questions of the Foucault Pendulum. I explained here above that I never, ever wrote anything similar to what is written in the article. It should not be difficult to establish it and to accept my version of the article.

Regarding the Charpak issue, I consider it as an ethical problem. An encyclopedic article has an "oecumenic mission". Not a dividing one. Charpak is not my ennemy and I do not want him to feel like it. As I do not want the readers to think that he is my ennemy.

I might be blocked for what I wrote in the article and I would regret it. But I sincerely do not have the feeling to "vandalize" this article.

Igor

I travel a lot. Sometimes when I wake up in a dark room, it takes me a few seconds to remember what city I am in, what hotel I am staying at, what I have to do that day, &c. It's very disorienting.

I got the same feeling a little bit ago when I read a Physicist stating that it is possible to predict a phenomenon with mechanics but, somehow, mechanics doesn't explain the phenomenon. If I can predict a pendulum's motion with mechanics then how does mechanics not explain a pendulum's behavior? The statement in question that the Foucault pendulum (why Foucault? Who knows!) "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics." I hate to lecture at an intro level, but mechanics deals with the motion of objects in response to forces. You're trying to morph a quite silly, elementary mistake regarding mechanics into the origins of inertia.

(Personally, I would have claimed that this mistake was a deep, sophisticated, and misunderstood claim that mechanics does not address the fundamental question of what is "mass." That question is the Big Daddy of Physics.)

In regards to your claim that you didn't receive a mark of "honorable," what grade did you receive then? Your advisor -- and yourself, for that matter -- have written that you received an mark of "honorable." Simply stating that there isn't one on a thesis report is bizarre. All French theses receive a mark or mention in order to pass the defense, and I'm curious what yours was.

w.r.t. Charpak, I don't think it's necessary to list specific names. So let's drop Charpak but retain the fact that it is important to indicate that sock puppets were used to intimidate and insult people.

--EE Guy 00:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I second the removal of the reference to the Charpak insult. Ze miguel 09:34, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Archive 5

Created archive 5 (just learned how to do it). I hope I didn't cut any active discussions. There is now a total of 839 kb of discussions about this subject.

Ze miguel 22:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

NicholasTurnbull In a China Shop!

Nicholas, I quickly glanced over your edits... THANKS!! I think you did the article great justice.

--EE Guy 01:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I couldn't help but notice that there's a new "Igor B" who (I feel confident) is a distinct person from "Igor B." The reason I feel so confident is the modification to the photo of Igor and Grichka by our new editor. [5] And I thought the French Government's intervention by Mme. Amélie de Bourbon Parme [6] was going to be the highlight of this comedy!

--EE Guy 04:55, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I have blocked this user and invited him to create another username if he wants to contribute. Rama 07:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Oops, I messed up with the photograph when I was only trying to look at it. Please ignore my reverts. CatherineV 08:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Nicholas did some good work but also deleted the paragraph I'd added about French threads. I suppose this was unintentional, but if not, could you please discuss before deleting/modifying ? Thank you. --CatherineV 08:11, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh, awfully sorry, it was an accident - I used a text editor to make changes to the article content, and I must have accidentally cut off the paragraph when I pasted back the modified text. I'll be more careful next time; sorry. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 15:04, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

to relate the "Charpak incident" is indeed relevant

In that affair, allmost all the facts are around the idea of intellectual honesty. Each time, the Bogdanoff think that they've genuine point to "prove"them right. It’s never their fault,even things written in their own book. So i think that it’s highly important to show,at least once,when they‘ve been caught red handed. And it’s a quite good revelator of their personality. Whatever the reasons, they did cowardly insult(i would say difame) G.Charpak through a sock puppet, and they just can’t say “ok, we apologize, so let’s forget about it !”.

I think that either CQG does want to forget that they publish a bogdanoff paper, they explicitly tell that this paper was an epiphenomenon, wich doesn’t reflect its quality. But the Bogdanov keep on reminding that they have a paper accepted by CQG. So, Igor, why don’t we forget about it? You ‘ve acknowlegded it only because you were complelled to. Taking a look at any internet discussion where you’ve been involved, we can see that you always avoid admitting something (specially the sock puppets of yours), as long as you can, with such pathetic excuses.

Shan Majid did say that he consider you and your brother as weak students, so why don’t we forget about the phd report (wich always are diplomatic in the Frensh system).

Anyway, another thing to remind of (from archive 5) :

You ask " Luis : where did you read in our book that we wrote that "the limit of..etc.? Can you give me the page, please? Igor”.

Here is my answer : “Igor: some problems of memory ? page 292, one can read "Quelle est la limite d’une suite de nombres qui, sans fin, deviennent de plus en plus petits ? C’est le zéro". Wich can (without any controversy) be translated as "What is the limit of a sequence of numbers wich, endlessly ,become smaller and smaller? it's the zero." I'm eager to see the way you'll try to "escape" from this. Another horrible mistake you made in your book is that the set of the imaginary numbers is the algebraic closure of the set of the real numbers.” Something to say about it ?

--Luis A. 03:46, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Luis, I don't think it's necessary to keep the Charpak insult. There is already a quote by Charpak about what he thinks of the Bogdanovs' work, and a link to the article where the insult is quoted. The Bogdanovs have stated several times that they didn't realize that statements written on Usenet could have real-life consequences, which I think is a rather silly, but genuine explanation. Ze miguel 09:40, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I have a suggestion: perhaps the reference to a sequence of numbers decreasing to 0 could be replaced by the unproven affirmation that "the solar system was twice smaller in volume four billions years ago than now (because of the Universe expansion)". Ze miguel 09:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Ze miguel

thee main problem with the Bogdanoff is that you don't know if their "explanation" are sincere or just to give the illusion that they have one. As you said, their "expalnations" about the Charpak incident is nothing but silly,specially from 50 y.o. men pretending to be geniuses. So why should we buy it ? It's like the "Schreiber incident", to say that a statement of a scientist is a "personal judgement" is astonishing. The problem with the link is that it's "too marked ideologicaly". I think it’s better to read it in a more balanced text.

I think that the mistake about the decreasing sequence is among the best to show the level of theses blunders and to be understood.

--Luis A. 11:07, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, I would like to point out that the goal is to achieve the realisation of a reasonable article; if something proves to be a problem which comes in the way of this, it is sensible to try and get around it. My personal and unqualified sentiment (I do not edit the article itself) is that it might be relevant, but if I see that a consensus is shaping to ignore this, it might be worth giving the idea a though.

The the latest edits have been quite productive and reasonable, and I'd be happy if things could go on this way. Rama 11:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, now that the situation is stabilizing itself, I wonder what the impact of the arbitration commitee will be, when they take a decision. Ze miguel 13:17, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I just saw on the arbitration page that my account is up for being permanently blocked (along with anybody who's edited the article). I was never notified... in fact, I've never been blocked. Good grief!

BTW, Igor has already tried using sock puppets on this Talk page to make the argument that his solar-system blunder was correct.[7] Of course, this was after claiming he never said it... until YBM made it embarassing clear that he had.[8]

Also, if you read some of the history of this talk page (and other newsgroups) a pattern quickly emerges. Igor repeatedly and forcefully denies that a ridiculous event or statement occurred. In many cases, irrefutable proof is given. Then a sock puppet appears who makes a bizarre argument that makes things even more amusing. I think if somebody abided by his brother's advice, stop using sock puppets, then this affair would have been over on 23 October 2002. A person's obsessive need to be right, even when he's clearly wrong, has caused this affair to linger beyond a single email. (The grade of honorable is a sad example.)

I think the statement about a decreasing sequence is easier to understand. People with a high-school education can see that's a silly error and it's well documented (specific page in the book). Let's go with the sequence!!

--EE Guy 13:38, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

WTF ?!! I may be mainly editing this article, but I'm also doing other stuff. I wouldn't mind being blocked from this page for any duration they deem necessary (even forever), but I would resent being banned over this, especially since I've been trying my best to be objective. Rama, Nicholas Turnbull, is there anything we can do over this ? Ze miguel 14:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I must confess, I didn't quite see this injunction until it was raised here; I quite agree that the arbitrators would appear to be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater", and since EE Guy, Ze miguel, CatherineV etc. all contributed without violating Wikipedia policy it would seem quite wrong of the arbitrators to block these accounts. I have a feeling it stems from the fact that User:XAL was given an indefinite block by the arbitrators right at the start of the case, and it is possibly that they otherwise thought it to be unfair that the other people involved in the article editing were not treated in a similar fashion. Although the Arbitration Committee are more or less the ultimate authority, one can make comments on proposed injunctions in the "Comments by others" subsection, which I shall do; I would also recommend you do the same on that page, to let the arbitrators know. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 15:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

This proposal has indeed been made on [the arbitration workshop]. However, this is a mere proposal, and people can of course comment on it -- which I am going to do right away. Rama 15:48, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

The Zero Degree of my Comments

I was banned and had no possibility to respond to some of the remarks written in the pression DP.

Let me first observe that EE Guy is mistaken when he believes that I was somehow hidden behind the comments about the "solar system expansion". A simple glance on these comments shows that it is not my style and that these phrases could not have been written by myself. Beyond that, I find that ee Guy is unnecessarily aggressive and shows a tendency to interpret the facts in a negative way. For example the "affair of the mention" : I offered to send the defense report to him (or whoever) in order to manifest the absence of any mention (which is not a big deal in itself but becomes such because of the misinterpretations of it). I had no answer on this point and the "Honorable" came back.

This proves (except for Ze Miguel who is quite objective and Catherine V who is also editing in a fair way) that it seems difficult for the team of editors to admit the material that I suggest in my comments. Probably because I am suspected to be both "subject and object" of this article.

However, I will submit, once more, some facts that, in my view, should be integrated in the article. These are facts likely to balance the article in a more objective way.

1. Motl's phrase was not complete and cut in the middle. I added the rest of it to put it in context.

2. Motl's comment was biaised. I rephrased it along his real conclusions

3. Internet discussions : again Bogdanoffs are back. But the truth is that I (Igor) was the only one to intervene in forums. I corrected this point.

4. Charpak : I have explained in lengh the reasons why I do not see a Wikipedia article like the updating of an unhappy sentence in the particularly surging context of an internet discussion. I sincerely apologized thereafter and the return of this phase in this article gives an image which does not correspond at all to reality.

5. In order to explain why it was difficult to explain our ideas on usenet, I added that our work is based on quantum groups theory which is not familiar to most of the participants

6. About the Foucault Pendulum, I added that it could only be understood in the frame of Topological Field Theory

7. Since Rbj added a excerpt of Woit's quote, I added the rest of the phrase actually written by Woit.

I hope that these additions will be taken in consideration for what they are and not be considered as a simple "reversion".

Igor

Unhappily, what you can write and prove, as what I can write and prove, don't matter for most editors of this article. The only reference is : what can be used against you is considered as being relevant, what cannot is "refused" and censored, despite all evidences we can give.

Laurence67 10:54, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, obviously. LLL

Farewell from Miguel

Dear all,

I will stop editing this article for now, at least until the Arbitration Committee implements their decision and the dust settles on this situation. I think it's a bit unfortunate, because I believe we are at a point where the article is mostly stable, interesting to read, and factual. Congratulations to both the critics and the supporters of the Bogdanovs for this.

To the critics: Good luck on your hard work, you're doing the right thing, especially YMB who has done such a tremendous work of documentation on the controversy.

To Mr Bogdanov:

that's Dr. Bogdanov, Ze. you see, he has a real Ph.D. and you can only get those if you make a real original contribution to the body of knowledge. that makes him Dr. Bogdanov and don't you ever forget it! r b-j 01:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

There's a saying that states Information wants to be free. Please bear this in mind: you cannot control the information that is available on the Internet, and the more you will try, the worse things will get. Other people and organizations have tried to hide or suppress negative information about themselves on the Internet, and only managed to further publicize that information and generate new critics.

If you would allow me to make a suggestion, try to emulate the attitude of Grigori Perelman: he published revolutionnary math papers, never seeked publicity, and has always let his work speak for himself. If your work is indeed valid, it will be recognized sooner or later. If not, you'd better let people forget about it and not keep igniting the flames with a hubris-filled and aggressive attitude.

Best Regards to all. Ze miguel 14:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

blessings, mon. please come back after the bodies have been removed. r b-j 01:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

You've been drinking again, haven't you? ;-) --EE Guy 04:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Goal of the Article, and the Introduction reflecting that

I restructured the introduction again to try and shed better light on why this controversy is worth talking about. I'll share some of my rationale so maybe someone will feel motivated to put some of the changes back in if they get reverted out:

Mentioning the precise date of October 22 is fairly irrelevant for the introduction and just breaks the readability. Saying it started in 2002 is fine, we see lots of precise dates-of-emails later.
The Sokal Affair is mentioned very quickly in the article body as being in Niedermaier's email, so people interested in that link can follow it. I think it's better to keep the introduction focused on the "Bogdanov Affair" (as it is) and link to hoax for those interested in a general survey. (Though it's tempting to link to SCIgen...)
This sentence is long and confusing after the comma: The Bogdanov Affair is an academic controversy regarding the merit of a series of theoretical physics papers written by French twin brothers Igor and Grichka Bogdanov (or Bogdanoff), and the academic credentials awarded based on the content of those publications. It took me a while to grok what EEGuy was saying about the academic credentials, but I devoted a paragraph to the academic credentials question because I grasped why it is central. Plus, speaking about the university's role is a less-inflammatory way for critics of the Bogdanovs to direct their frustration in a way that divides some responsibility with the institution instead of just attacking I & G.
Bolding the Bogdanovs more than once isn't necessary...once it has said Igor and Grichka Bogdanov (or Bogdanoff) they can be referenced simply (Igor, Grichka, or the Bogdanovs).

I have to say that this has been interesting to follow, and I really feel the article is (against all odds) getting significantly better. Maybe the peer review process isn't doomed after all. :) I do hope that the goal is to emphasize the academic implications rather than personal criticisms. Even if those criticisms are valid, my comments on how people don't change their minds based on attacks and disclaimers seem relevant. Metaeducation 15:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I do not think that the name can be written "Bogdanoff". Rama 16:02, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

that is not correct, Rama. there are multiple web pages and USENET postings where publications of the Bodanovs had their surname "Bogdanoff" and the B. brothers have used both spellings, at different times, themselves. it is necessary that at least a reference to the surname "Bogdanoff" be made at least once in case someone wants to Google them to find out what is out there. because i am accused of being partisan, i am trying to avoid editing the article (unless i see that Igor is turning it into a vanity page again) now that there are enough other editors and admins paying attention. r b-j 16:12, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems that asking Igor and Grichka is the right way to go about this — people choose what they are called (Jim or "Jimbo", etc.) Putting it back since there hasn't been previous complaint from them. Fair? Metaeducation 17:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The brothers have published scientific papers under both names, with most appearing as "Bogdanoff" but they also use "Bogdanov" (Before the Big Bang uses this spelling). It's normal for Russians to use "-off" in French and "-ov" in other languages (it's like "-son" in English). It is unusual for Russians to continue using both spellings once their name has been transliterated though (in fact, I've never seen somebody do that).

--EE Guy 18:03, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

In French, Russian names are transcribed in "-ov". But apparently, the Bogdanov are not Russian, but French (of Eastern origin). French is never written in cyrillic, so it would be most peculiar if they did not have a fixed spelling (most likely in -ov) for their name. Rama 06:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Massive Edit...

I noticed that LLL accidentally duplicated each section of the article in this edit [9]. My recent edit attempted to remove the extraneous sections, but I'm not 100% confident. Please double check my butchering.

--EE Guy 23:05, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Hey YBM or "Luis", can you translate...

... the Urs Schreiber commentary as represented by our friends of integrity in the book (copies at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fabien.besnard/Schreiber1.jpg and http://perso.wanadoo.fr/fabien.besnard/schreiber2.jpg) into English? this needs to go into the article alongside where they misrepresented Woit. we have english of what Schreiber originally wrote, and where Schreiber says to Besnard that his criticism was mistranslated into a praise of their "research" and printed in the book, but i do not have an English translation of what the B's actually said that Schreiber said. we need that. have there been other physicists that have been critical of their publications where the B's also misrepresented the criticism into praise? any other Franco-phones are welcome to offer their translation. hey, Igor, why don't you do it? i would be interesting to hear it from you. r b-j 06:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I suppose the sentence you need translation for is this :

In this context, theoretical physicist Urs Schreiber, expert in (super)string theory and SPR moderator, published a text where he summed up his understanding of our ideas. Later, the text was published on Schreiber's website, preceded with his own comments.

The translation of Schreiber's comments is correct. What is criticized here is the fact that one sentence is missing.

One comment: the translation doesn't come off as praise, but as a summary. I suppose this is why they chose to include it in the book.

CatherineV 08:10, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

What has been translated (aka not removed before), is more or less correct (at a little exception, see below), of course the translators failed miserabily to express the irony of the original message. --YBM 15:10, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

CatherineV> one sentence ? You know perfectly well that the Bodanov's originally removed two sentences :

   (At this point they mention the word, just the word, "Hagedorn temperature",
  not noticing that, considering the role the Hagedorn temperature plays in
  string cosmology, this is bordering on self-parody.)

  Just to make sure: I do not think that any of the above is valid reasoning.
  I am writing this just to point out what I think are the central "ideas"
  the authors had when writing their articles and how this led them to their
  conclusions.

Of course the Bogdanovs have the right (legally) to do so (remove what give its meaning to a text), as everyone, but some fans, considered this properly disgusting, and Schreiber himself considered that this make sure that the Bogdanovs' concerns is not science, here is what the brothers wrote to Schreiber

  Dear  Mr Shreiber,
  
  Considering the amount of books (Avant le Big Bang) that has been sold last week,  
  a new lot of  books has been printed   2 days ago.
  
  Following  your unexpected reaction, we have decided to add the missing phrase  where
  you precise "Just to make sure...etc".
  
  In fact, we really do not think that it is a  good idea to add this phrase :  now your
  technical point appears  much weaker and (since he feels a strong contradiction)  the reader
  gets quite suspicious about your judgement.  In a way, instead of being a neutral expert, you
  suddenly appear as someone who cannot overcome its own contradictory position.
  
  Too bad, but it was your choice.
  
  Best,
  
 I/G Bogdanoff
 
  PS The book is going to be sold in the US and various other countries.  We have  2 options :
  1. We publish your text  with the correction
  2. We suppress it.
  Tell us   your choice.

(NB : this was a lie : the book is not about to be "sold" in the US or other english speaking country, as a matter of facts the translation rights for english are still free today)

When Igor published this very instructive letter, he added this comment (which is even more instructive on the complete autism of the author on morality) :

Schriber (sic) haven't responded yet, so we can ligitimally assume that he is delighted to be quoted in our book.

Later the final paragraph has been restablished in the book (but NOT the other sentence !), just look how its beginning has been translated :

Origial : « Just to make sure : I do not think that any of the above is valid reasoning. »

French Bogdanov's translation : « Juste une précision : je ne prétends pas que le raisonnement ci-dessus soit valide. »

Litteral english translation : « Just a precision : I do not pretend that the above reasoning is valid »

About this kind of dishonest quoting (which has nothing to do with translation's mistakes as Igor pretended), here is an even more shamefull one : (cf. http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1441745 )

"These papers claimed—well, it is not clear exactly what they did claim. And therein lies the problem, for all were published in well-respected peer-reviewed journals. That means publication was conditional on the say-so of independent and anonymous expert referees. Nonsense is not supposed to get through this process—certainly not five times.

[...]

Nonetheless, l’affaire Bogdanov might give post-modernists justifiable cause to snicker. And it leads you to :wonder what else is getting through the supposedly foolproof net of peer review.

In the Book "Avant le Big Bang", Giorgis opinion is quoted as :

"Tous les articles des Bogdanov ont été publiés dans des revues à “referees” extrêmement respectées. Cela veut donc dire que dans chaque cas, la publication a été rigoureusement soumise à l’approbation d’experts indépendants et anonymes. Des articles incompréhensibles ne peuvent pas passer au travers d’une telle procédure, et certainement pas à cinq reprises !"

(this is the complete paragraph, note that the Bogdanov began to translate in the middle of a sentence and the words they added up and changed, the result is a complete reversal of meaning)

"All Bogdanov's papers has been published in well-respected peer-reviewed journals. That means therefore that publication was rigorously submitted on the say-so of independent and anonymous expert referees. Nonsense cannot get through this process—certainly not five times." --YBM 15:10, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't have the book, i had it lent. But i can still translate the "page 365"(schreiber2.jpg):

COMMENT ON THE TOPOLOGICAL APPROACH OF THE SINGULARITY (1) By Urs SCHREIBER Department of thereotical physics Essen, University November the 10th,2002

The line of reasoning of the Bogdanov is the following: (2) They start considering the general form of any partition function Z(beta) = Tr(exp(-beta H)). They set beta equal to zero and find Z(0)= Tr(1). They notice that the Hamiltonian has disappeared in this equation (3).They conclude that Tr(1) must be the partition function of a topological field theory in so far as they set (4) that a partition function of a topological field theory by setting the Hamiltonian in exp(-beta H) equal to zero.Let’s call this "result" A.

Second step, Igor and Grishka Bogdanov undertake to apply this idea to a context that justifies bêta is equal to zero, thereby arriving at the FRW cosmology, where bêta is equal to zero as the scale factor R become nile. They reason as follows: "At the initial singularity we have beta=0, therefore physics 'at the initial singularity', by result A, is described by topological field theory." This is "result" B.(...)

Some simple comments of mine:

(1)Such a pompous title like this is added by the Bogdanov.

(2)The begining "I think" has disappeared.

(3)An ironically(i think) "!" has disappeared.

(4)Instead of “ because they think”.

Schreiber is careful and would like to set out what he judges as a false reasoning. All the changes are made to get rid of the prudence or the irony. Not to mention the 2 sentences wich had been purely erased.

- At this point ... - Just to make sure: I do not think that any of the above is valid reasoning. I am writing this just to point out what I think are the central "ideas" the authors had when writing their articles and how this led them to their conclusions.

About this last one, i've read that it was reinserted in the last version of the book but translated this way.

“ Just to make sure: I do not claim that any of the above is valid reasoning. I am writing this just to point out what I think are the central "ideas" the authors had when writing their articles and how this led them to their conclusions."

Dismaying isn't it ?

Maybe Catherine V. can achieve the translation of the “comment on the approach...”?

--Luis A. 23:46, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The SPIRES endless list

I once again deleted the list of SPIRES quotes. Two reasons :

1. The subject is already discussed under "Followups"
2. This list does not improve the article. Rama and Ze_Miguel agreed that it was footnote fodder. Rama recommended finding a general average (just making that average of the people cited here makes little sense), or possibly John Baez, since he was involved in the discussion with the Bogdanov (but I don't quite like one-sample or 5-sample statistics).

CatherineV 07:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Igor continues to whitewash

Afflicted to intervene again on these points but I corrected some factual errors and I made some modifications to the quotation relating to Charpak.

Here are the 9 modifications I made on the article :

1. Igor's "Honorable" mention

Although this point is quite minor (it is of no importance, in fact, if I had "Honorable" or no mention at all) but the truth is that I had no mention on my thesis report. I offered any neutral party to check this point (I would send a copy of my thesis report after defense) and the "arbiter" could see that contrarely to Grichka's there is no mention on this documents (for reasons I explained many times. If the article is supposed to become a "reference", it has to be exact. Consequently I suppressed the mention/.

2Reports on the thesis

In the present version of the article, there are 2 reports for Igor and only 1 for Grichka. I therefore added a short phrase of the report of Majid (which also would prove that Majid does not only complain about us).

3.CQG email

It has been proven that "CQG apology" was only a private email originally destined to some members of the Editorial Board (so that they could respond to the press in the middle of the "hoax rumor" spread by Niedermaier). Rbj's idea to reinject the totallity of this email is not right : I suppressed the unecessary phrases.

4. Motl's statement

I suppressed the interpretation that was made of Motl's initial statement (the one dated June 16th). Because recently (october 3) Motl has reconsidered a second post ("Seriously about the Bogdanoffs II") where he wrote some conclusions that do not confirm his first interpretation (in particular the fact that our paper was unintelligible or the fact we could have had some financial ienterest to defend our articles). I also think that the editor who wrote that some formulas were "plagiarized" from other papers is a non sense in terms of scientific research. Because the essence of science is precisly to build new ideas upon the common body of knowledge where one can find formulas that are identified by many other researchers in the same field. Motl knows that. And when he wrote that some of the formulas of our articles were "copied from other work" he did not mean "plagiarized" of course but only the fact that these formulas were known and valid.

5. Minor change I replaced "...convince any other participants..." by "convince most other participants " . Simply because some participants (like Fabio Toscano) defended an other view. Toscano wrote on the 29/11/02 the following :

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".

6. Charpak I suppressed (once more) this "example of our aggressivity". Everyone who followed our exchanges on fora knows that we were not aggressive. This is a fact. We have posted more than 3000 messages on internet. If one can find more than 5 so called "aggressive posts" on this total it is the maximum (and these "aggressive" posts were only written in response to the incredible aggressivity of YBM and his friends). Therefore when the article present our way of posting as "aggressive" it is not true. Once more, if someone can collect a significant number of "aggressive posts" I am ready to reconsider the question. But in the meantime I suppress the Charpak example that is giving a false image of the reality.

7.Foucault Pendulum being a "piece of Museum" I suppressed this sentence that does not make any sesnse. There is no connection between the fact that most of the physicists do not clearly understand topologicial field theory and the fact that Foucault pendulum is a piece of museum.

8. Minor change I suppressed "Bogdanoff" after Grichka (everyone knows who "Grichka is").

9 addition I added (which is a fact) that "the general theoretical physics community was influenced by the "hoax rumor" and therefore does not invest the necessary time and efforts to decide wether the papers are valid or not".

Igor

your reasoning above for the major reversions have absolutely no substance other than they are nakedly self-serving. i wish we could assume good faith with you, but you have proven that we cannot. r b-j 18:12, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

These are no "major reversions" but only a few minor factual infos and some nuances that are necessary. Good faith does not have anything to do with the fact that I did not get "Honorable", for instance.

Here are the 9 modifications I made on the article :

1. Igor's "Honorable" mention

Although this point is quite minor (it is of no importance, in fact, if I had "Honorable" or no mention at all) but the truth is that I had no mention on my thesis report. I offered any neutral party to check this point (I would send a copy of my thesis report after defense) and the "arbiter" could see that contrarely to Grichka's there is no mention on this documents (for reasons I explained many times. If the article is supposed to become a "reference", it has to be exact. Consequently I suppressed the mention/.

2Reports on the thesis

In the present version of the article, there are 2 reports for Igor and only 1 for Grichka. This is not normal. I therefore added a short phrase of the report of Majid (which would also prove that Majid does not only complain about us).

3.CQG email

It has been proven that "CQG apology" was only a private email originally destined to some members of the Editorial Board (so that they could respond to the press in the middle of the "hoax rumor" spread by Niedermaier). Rbj's idea to reinject the totallity of this email is not right : I suppressed the unecessary phrases.

4. Motl's statement

I suppressed the interpretation that was made of Motl's initial statement (the one dated June 16th). Because recently (october 3) Motl has reconsidered a second post ("Seriously about the Bogdanoffs II") where he wrote some conclusions that do not confirm his first interpretation (in particular the fact that our paper was unintelligible or the fact we could have had some financial ienterest to defend our articles). I also think that the editor who wrote that some formulas were "plagiarized" from other papers is a non sense in terms of scientific research. Because the essence of science is precisly to build new ideas upon the common body of knowledge where one can find formulas that are identified by many other researchers in the same field. Motl knows that. And when he wrote that some of the formulas of our articles were "copied from other work" he did not mean "plagiarized" of course but only the fact that these formulas were known and valid.

5. Minor change I replaced "...convince any other participants..." by "convince most other participants " . Simply because some participants (like Fabio Toscano) defended an other view. Toscano wrote on the 29/11/02 the following :

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".

6. Charpak I suppressed (once more) this "example of our aggressivity". Everyone who followed our exchanges on fora knows that we were not aggressive. This is a fact. We have posted more than 3000 messages on internet. If one can find more than 5 so called "aggressive posts" on this total it is the maximum (and these "aggressive" posts were only written in response to the incredible aggressivity of YBM and his friends). Therefore when the article present our way of posting as "aggressive" it is not true. Once more, if someone can collect a significant number of "aggressive posts" I am ready to reconsider the question. But in the meantime I suppress the Charpak example that is giving a false image of the reality.

7.Foucault Pendulum being a "piece of Museum" I suppressed this sentence that does not make any sesnse. There is no connection between the fact that most of the physicists do not clearly understand topologicial field theory and the fact that Foucault pendulum is a piece of museum.

8. Minor change I suppressed "Bogdanoff" after Grichka (everyone knows who "Grichka is").

9 addition I added (which is a fact) that "the general theoretical physics community was influenced by the "hoax rumor" and therefore does not invest the necessary time and efforts to decide wether the papers are valid or not".

Igor

Mr Igor B.

Can gives us a copy of the "Procès verbal de soutenance" please ? Only this document is a real evidence of what you've said in the 1.

You often give several copies of the reports on the thesis, why don't you also give the "rapport de soutenance" (report on the defense) ??

--Luis A. 13:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I just proposed Nicholas Turnbull to receive this "rapport de soutenance". He will see that (contrarely to Grichka's) this report does not present any mention.

Recent reverts

I will ask Igor to refrain from reverting to furiously as to remove very valuable contributions from Alain r. Please discuss these questions with other contributors until a common version is drafted rather than edit the article in a way which is not acceptable for others.

I would like to remind you that it is usually strongly suggested that people refrain from writing articles about themselves. Furthermore, there have been proposals to block the main conflicting parties from this article. Your edits here are tolerated for now, but I am not keen to letting a conflictual situations develop. You would thus be well-advised to refrain from trying to enforce a particular tone for the article.

Luis A., please do not let yourself get provoked into revert wars. Thank you. Rama 14:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

O.K. Rama,no more revert for me. --Luis A. 17:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

i guess not now, Luis, since you, along with Igor his meat-puppets and a couple of his sock-puppets, have been cast into the abyss. well, at least some of us deserved it (not naming names but we all know who's been crapping up the article). i'm wondering how the admins and arbcom expect to keep, ahem, the "unnamed" from crapping up the article in the future using even more sock-puppets and anonymous IPs?

i'm reasonably satisfied with the article as it is at the moment. (can't imagine that makes Igor happy.)

i suppose i should ask, can i edit to this talk page, even if i may not edit to the article itself? r b-j 06:07, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Forums and television

Hello, I changed some parts of the article in Internet discussion and about television and Rayons X : I am not a scientist and I do not know anything about scientific critics and so on, but I have read the forums in "live" (I did not participate in it) and I do not understand why you said that the bogdanovs were aggressive and insulted people. Perhaps I missed something, but I have read many many insults TO the Bogdanov brothers by some participants of the forums. I hope that what I have written in the article is not too terrible, I know that my english is poor, feel free to correct the mistakes ! Marc Perroud 07:35, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

As 100% of your edits (3/3) are at this article, you are not allowed to edit this article any longer, by the ArbCom's temporary injunction. --Pjacobi 08:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Editing this article is forbidden to all newbies ? I believed that it was only for the participants who took part to the article before the ArbCom injunction.

And what about the mistakes ? You reverted what I wrote only because I am new, even if I wrote right things ? The insults on sur-la-toile.com and hardware did not exist, just because I have never edited on Wikipedia before ?

I believe that you do not understand something : people who know the french discussions on the forums (or fora, I do not know) are french speaking, so why would they be usual participants on the english Wikipedia ? If they are wikipedians, it is on the french wikipedia ! I hope at least that there are participants, here, who can understand french, and that they are going to verify the links that I have given to you ! If you do not do it, I do not see how you can write about this forums. Or if you consider only what YBM wrote, he is not really the most objective participant about this subject : he is the worst in the insults to the Bogdanovs !

I really thing, more and more, that you are not serious at all as an encyclopedia, and that the articles are made after the opinion of the administrators, and an "elite" of wikipedians : the ones who have edited the most. In French we call that "à la tête du client". It is not really a good reference for an article of an encyclopedia. It is YOUR problem : this article shows the weakness of wikipedia by comparison with a real encyclopedia, in which this kind of things would be forbidden by a comitee...

Marc Perroud 08:55, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

You watch Canal + too much. Rama 09:00, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the temporary injunction, to include everybody starting his Wikipedia in this article. --Pjacobi 09:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, but you would not erase something right to put back something wrong just because the participant who wrote it is a newbie, no ? So, what do you think is wrong in what I wrote ?

Most pseudonyms purported physicists or mathematicians, defending the Bogdanovs' work, sometimes with irony against their critics (among them the Nobel prize recipient Georges Charpak, who had spoken ill of them on television). Generally speaking, the discussions in the forums became more and more agressive, and the Bogdanovs were often violently insulted by the participants, especially on the forums sur-la-toile.com (topics 1 and 2) and hardware.fr. Some of them decided to alert the mass media in order to make their reputation as bad as possible.

Did you verify the links ? If some of you know Canal + they must understand french, no ?

Marc Perroud 09:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

This is not a issue of content. In fact, re-reading the temporary injunction, I should just ban you until resolution of the ArbCom case, which seems a bit strong. --Pjacobi 10:09, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, I understand, thank you. But you, as a participant (and administrator) who is not baned, can you consider the evidences that I gave to you ?

Marc Perroud 10:51, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Funny isn't it? We haven't been banned for a long time that by a sheer fluke, someone "innoncently" came to make some change exclusively in aid of the Bogdanov bros...

I think that this article couldn't be improved (closer to reality). I think that it should be protected to prevent people from editing later in a way or the other.

Luis A. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.185.34.8 (talk • contribs) 08:23, 18 October 2005.

i told the admins and arbcom a while back that they won't really be able to block Igor unless they protect the article after they settle on what they think is an appropriately NPOV version. at least they will have to protect the article for weeks, long enough that Igor will lose interest and maybe move on. Igor now thinks he can outlast the admins by repeatedly probing until some of his whitewash is allowed to stick. the only two ways the admins can keep him out of their face is to 1. give in and let Igor edit under whatever sock-puppet he comes up with next or 2. protect the article, at least long enough that Igor goes away. the third alternative (the status quo) will mean multple reverts of Igor's edits daily.

this is both disgusting and humorous. i hope the arbcom understands why you, YBM, and me (much later) came to the conclusion about the B. bros. that we have: "We are not dealing with honest people." r b-j 16:47, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

i'm glad to see the article protected again. did you see the latest in Igor's blatant hypocrisy? (how arrogant is he to think we are so stupid and cannot see through his sock-puppets? even more arrogant is he that he thinks he can hoodwink the whole physics community with jargon and technique borrowed from The emperor's new clothes!)

as predicted, even though banned from the article, he edited the article 8 times just today while banned. twice as Marc Perroud (talk · contribs), twice as Solar S (talk · contribs), twice as Baumer (talk · contribs), once as Gannon (talk · contribs), (all accounts created today for the sole use to edit the article precisely as Igor had just earlier), and also as IP 80.11.18.171 (talk · contribs) (again, identical edit, so we know it's Igor). the hypocrisy is naked when some other IP reverted Igor (then posing as Baumer) that he turns around immediately reverting with this justification: "Edits of unidentified editors are not considered as valid. Revert.". when i read that, i almost died laughing on the floor. i wonder if that is Igor's new strategy - to kill off his critics with this ridiculously naked and childish hypocrisy and dishonesty. r b-j 03:09, 19 October 2005 (UTC) (it might work if you can't persuade 'em!)

Does Igor ever give up?

Don't call the priest and the mourners. The vast majority of the working editors does not bear Igor's anonymous presence. You see, Marc Perroud, Solar S, etc, are not necesseralycoming from Igor's factory for breaking bans. Instead of believing that Igor's hands are impaled on some plunging needles, why don't you apply your energy to solve some of the "problems" raised by Laurent S about Mr Alain R recent critics? 204.13.153.34

Notice : the above text has been posting from a dedicated server of an hosting company. It is very likely that a proxy has been setted up on this host on purpose. Moreover the edit shows Igor typographic habits, like multiple spaces after ponctuation marks. --212.180.21.18 14:44, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

another typographic giveaway is the use of necesseraly instead of necesseraly (press the edit box to see the difference). the other giveaway is simply the timing for these sock-puppets to appear out of the ether. (i like the illusion to "Igor's factory", i'll have to use it in the future.) immediately after Igor and his other sock puppets were banned. hmmmm... who could that be?

geeez, he must think we're stupid. we could tell that CatherineV was different from Igor (for reasons flattering to CatherineV) and that XAL was different from Igor (for reasons not so flattering to XAL/Sophie)/. Laurence67 is harder to tell, could be a sock-puppet or just a meat-puppet. but all these other sock puppets are pretty transparent. r b-j 14:57, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I have made several attempts at editing,but the light shone on me more than on the subject.If I am supposed to be Igor,then let's be him.Do I diserve so much attention although I squeezed on the stage for this moment of applause? Instead,I would especially like to thank rbj for his styled analysis of Laurent S "small difficulties".Are you ready for this invaluable response?

You're very wise Igor, now you don't even put one space after pontuation marks. BTW, Laurent_s only addressed side details from Alain_r's journey, and even had to do a irrealistic surinterpretation of the gibberish your brother and you wrote to do so, he would be very good at dicovering "Bible Codes". He is not fool enough, though, to even try to address the core of the rebuttal.

i didn't respond to nor stylishly analyze "Laurent S" (unless you're conceding that you are Laurent S) and since you now are virtually indentifying yourself as Igor, i must say that your attempts at impersonation are clumsy. this is why we don't believe you when you claimed support from all these other sock-puppets or fictitious physicists. you're not even very good at your attempts to decieve, Igor, how can we take you seriously about your real competence in physics, particularly a very deep and abstract specialty of the discipline? Igor, your very words and actions expose you as the imposter you are. it's easy to see that. why don't you save yourself and everybody else a lot of time and give this charade up? r b-j 23:47, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I was wondering how long it after Nicholas removed the protection of the article that it would take for Igor, an "editor" specifically banned from editing anything at WP particularly this article in which Igor and his brother are the subjects, to vandalize the article with his self-serving tripe. "How long? ... Not long." Now, how long before they have to protect the article again? How long? ... We'll see. r b-j 02:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

If this article was a little more realistic, instead of being as negative as possible, it would not need to be protected, nobody would be banned, etc. The Bogdanovs' opponents are too "zealous", and it cannot work in such a way. We are supposed to be in an encyclopedia, not in a forum for agressive teenagers !

Corector 07:31, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

geeez, he must think we're stupid. 1. the article could be much more negative regarding your behavior "Corector" just with inclusion of more facts about your on-line mendaciousness and narcissism (which is painfully obvious just by your behavior here). 2. you are the "agressive teenager". you are the one ruthlessly reverting the article, to a form that removes facts that you don't like exposed (meaning you refuse taking responsibilty for your own actions, the very epitome of immaturity). you refuse to go by the rules. how arrogant you are that you think your motive is not transparent to all of us. r b-j 17:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

You write to us,all of us,as if we were one and only one person.But we are not.We think the same but we are not the same person.Since the administrators, with their systematic reverts, are now acting negatively against the Bogdanovs,it seems inevitable that this article becomes the fabric of a "miserable truth".But be certain that we will not give up and allow a partial information take the place of the right one. I am a physicist.And I know that in supporting the brothers,I might set off a firestorm of criticism.But I also know that they may have done something valuable in the field of quantum gravity.I am greatful that they put new questions,some of which many theorist must have found impertinent,intrusive,or just plain wrong.But it does not matter,I think.What matters is that this refreshing work articulates new ideas about the initial singularity problem and proposes new methods to describe them.This is what I defend here.This is what we defend here.

If you don't respect us, on what basis would you respect nature? Fred Bauder 02:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

wow! what is this!! some kind of trinity? or quadrinity or quintity? this is like it just came out of a science fiction movie and the little radio receivers in each of your heads just light up and you all started to speak the same words as in one voice. kinda like reading a creed together or similar.

i got it! it's the Council of Bogosity promugating their finding. no one will ever believe this. r b-j 00:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear Mr rbj:You act like a "kinda" judge in a trial.I "dunno"(your way of writing) if you realize this.But dont forget that this is not a trial and that you do not even understand what you are supposed to judge.the most damaging action on this case is made by ignorance.And rbj,like most others,you are ignorant.Even Alain R(whose supposed expertise in astrophysics should allow him to say sound things)does not know what he his talking about.

this is precisely the heart of the (pre-emptive) argument made by the "weavers of fine cloth" in The emperor's new clothes. geee, since i cannot see the invisible clothes, i must be unworthy to venture an opinion that the emperor is naked. r b-j 16:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

If you had a iota of idea about what is going on here,you would have at least written"something"in reaction to Laurent S analysis of all the obvious mistakes made by Alain r about Bogdanovs work.But you cannot do it.If Alain r could have addressed at least some answers,he would have done it.But neither you nor Alain r have understood (or even read)Brans Dicke,Wheeler,Landau and others.It is clear to me that you do not know what TQFT is about.I am certain that you never heard of KMS states,quantum gravity or any of these theories.Yet you talk.You write.You try to impose your views on a problem that is far beyond your understanding.

I think it's useless to wait for Alain r answer : he is in a corner. 202.153.116.54

I just have more important things to do at the moment. I will reply later next week. Alain Riazuelo 12:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I didn't notice that you, Igor Bogdanov, indeed corenered, who is editing through a chinese anonymous proxy or your brother, would have answered a single word to Alain_r journey in the Bogdanoff universe. What wrote Laurent_s is only a desperate way to give some meaning to the less stupid statements you wrote (he didn't even try to address Alain_r's core arguments), one could argue this way that the Holy Bible deals with electromagnetism because of the numerous occurences of the word "light" in there. YBM

Welcome back,Mr YBM,I thought you were banned!If not from Wikipedia,

isn't this a little bit like, ...how shall we say..., the pot calling the kettle "black".? r b-j 16:15, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

at least-and forever-from real science.Your inability to speack about serious physics has been proven many times.If not,due to your need of your quotidian dose of "anti bogda"reactions,you would have already said all the things you have in mind regarding "A small journey...".But the thing is that you have nothing in mind.No arguments to address,no "demonstrations"to propose, nothing.You are a brillant loner,Ybm,a scavenger of other's people work,driving disastrous "stock thoughts" down and then stepping in,making a killing,and stepping out again.Serious physicists are acting and writing diffrently.Neither you nor rbj are even capable to speack theoretical physics at a significant level. Now let's wait what Alain r has to say.I bet it is going to be...difficult for him.

it appears to everyone, other than you, that Riazuelo, Screiber, Baez, and Carlip have pretty effectively disposed of any pretense to real science you have attempted to make. the only difficultly is that you don't really engage them. they ask a precise question and you cleverly (in your own mind) evade and answer something different. there is no evidence in any of your pathetic defenses that you can even do the mathematics required to work the problems in the very physics you write about. it's all just talk. r b-j 16:15, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"You write to us,all of us,as if we were one and only one person.But we are not.We think the same but we are not the same person"

Apparently these several people "think the same" to the point that they all keep reverting to the very same version of the article, to the comma. It is beginning to be increasingly difficult to rule out the possibility that one person is making fun of us. This is most displeasing, and should be noted in the arbcom procedure. Rama 12:55, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

You know why it is the same text?Because I will go to the versions you (all administrators) revert,copy it and restore exacly as it is.This is the sole "stable version"that should be published.This is not the proof that I am alone.This is the proof that this article is controled by administrators and that (in itself)is a problem.Because "Rama",as Snowspinner,asTurnbull,as Jacobi, etc,have no idea of what they are trying to deal with.They do not understand theoretical sciences and this appears in their reactions.K

Reactions such as ? I do not remember ever discussing physics here.

Beside what is it with your punctuation ?

Another note: I demand that these ridiculous rants stop, or I shall block both the article and the talk page. Talk pages are there to discuss improvements to an article, not to harass people. Rama 14:24, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I block everybody on sight, whose only edits are at Talk:Bogdanov Affair and Bogdanov Affair. --Pjacobi 15:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"Collective" ban

May I know what does mean exactly : "All user accounts used by participants in the external controversy (involving the Bogdanov Affari) are banned from Wikipedia pending resolution of this matter." ??? I see on the discussion page that Rbj takes part to it, with his own account... OK, technically I understand the difference with the others, including myself : he is banned only for the article "Bogdanov affair". But apparently he can still edit the discussion page ! Is it really fair ??? Shouldn't he be banned also of the discussion page, as we, the other "banned", cannot - theoritically - answer to him ?

"theoritically" that's never stopped you. at least i abide by the ban and stayed away from the article itself. can Igor claim the same? your mendacity and sense of entitlement is incredible. r b-j 16:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

And still more : I see that YBM can take part to this page also, with his account... Now I don't understand, even at a technical level ! Isn't he banned exactly as I am ? So why is he able to edit this page ?

Laurence

next time someone has to revert Igor's vandalism ...

... can they fix the spelling of "responsibility" in the Origins of affair section? (i'd do it myself, but of course...)

Also, can "someone" (gee, i can't ask a banned editor to do this) supply the details (or link to details) of the Georges Charpak quote (that is deleted at the moment) that "the Bogdanovs are inexistant in Science"? this quote needs to be documented well, and then re-included since the opinion of a Nobel Laurate in physics has some authority (not necessarily final) about the value of things related to physics. r b-j 21:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

i guess not. and i guess it does mean precisely nothing. at least to Igor.r b-j 01:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

....I believe the answer to the the question in your edit line is becomming very, very clear to everybody.....Anyway; I have used my "quota" for now; hope (assume!) others take over. Regards, Huldra 02:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

i just don't know why they don't leave the article protected...

... something about trying to "figure out who is doing the socking." isn't it obvious? r b-j 23:32, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

There is an additional reason why we shouldn't leave the article protected - you must remember that this is meant to be a wiki, and a wiki where all pages on contentious issues were protected solely due to the behaviour of miscreants would not really be much of a wiki. Moreover, in disputed subjects such as this one, it is a good idea that a wide range of different editors have an opportunity to edit it, just to ensure that the article is as factual and neutral as possible - to protect it would obviously mean that no further corrections could be made. I am sure that the Bogdanov brothers would not be averse to defying a particular arbcom resolution that they were permanently banned - not just injuncted - against editing the article, judging by their past behaviour, and so the article would be permanently protected forever. Incidentally, also, page protection for longer than 1 week is contrary to Wikipedia:Blocking policy. Whilst it does require a significant amount of work to maintain the article to a reasonable standard, for which I thank the hard work of all of the dedicated reverters and blockers most gratefully, I feel that the benefits of a freely-editable article are greater in long term value than short-term expedience brought on by the misadventures of a few. Regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 17:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Nicholas despite the stupid work needed to block the socks. There are several thousands potential editors invited and welcome to evolve the, in fact nearly everybody who has a non-empty, non-bogda-only edit history on en.wikipedia. --Pjacobi 19:23, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I also support this point of view. I blocked the article at some point because virtually all contributions were pointless edits which were just a waste of time. However, I fully agree with the idea that it is not the article that should not be sanctionned because of the behaviour of the users who edit it. Rama 22:25, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

well, in any case, i wonder if i'm going way outa line to ask if some neutral and un-banned editor would like to take out the reference to École Polytechnique in the "Origins" section of the article. it was a mistake of the NY Times copied over. both got their Ph.Ds. from Bourgogne and, according to Niedermayer, used the École Polytechnique facility for the following purpose: " For the actual defense they rented a hall in the prestigeous École Polytechnique, arranged a big dinner with the president, invited the TV, Éand passed gloriously. " anyway, i think that reference should be deleted.

there's another lateral movement of some text, that i think should be done to make the article clearer. this would be to move

For months, the domain name of the International Institute of Mathematical Physics created by the Bogdanovs, th-phys.edu.hk, created erroneous suggestions amongst forum participants as to a possible link with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Despite the similarity of name, this is unaffiliated with the reputable Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics in Vienna, Austria.

to

The Bogdanovs have not, at the time of writing, published any scientific paper since 2003; however, in collaboration with theoretical physicist Arkadiusz Jadczyk, they have founded the International Institute of Mathematical Physics in order to study and develop their theories. Despite the similarity of name, this is unaffiliated with the reputable Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematical Physics in Vienna, Austria. In 2004, two papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals by A. Jadczyk within the framework of this Institute. These two papers are not closely related to the issues addressed in the previous Bogdanovs' papers.

(italics removed). if anyone does this change, i think no one can complain that it biases it in any direction. r b-j 23:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Nicholas. BTW, the 2002 Times article can be read (for the time being) at Talk:Bogdanov_Affair/comments to see where that misconception came from. IMO, if defended from attack, the article should be in pretty stable shape, now. i leave it in your capable and worthy and NPOV hands. r b-j 00:49, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Cosmology?

Hi, I'm editing some articles about cosmology and epistemology, and I found the link to this article in the theoretical physics related articles section...randomly lloking for an article I can contribute to. I'm not french but I was living in Montreal and in Belgium and I know about the Bogdanov brothers, and was interested to know what an article about them on En Wiki could look like... And even if I didn't see that many articles on Wiki, this one is probably among the most problematic ones. How come you have so many problems to edit this article??? I've been spending days and days reading the related websites, articles and documents listed and available on the web, and since then, I would like to know whether it's possible to get involved as third part in the editing of the article? I won't touch it until I get a positive response since I don't want to be banned (which seems to happen to all new editors of this article. But it's funny to see that they're all editing just this article and nothing else...), and remain able to edit my articles. Hope I can be helpfull on this issue Doublestein 09:47, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

That's quite curious : Doublestein seems to say that he found this page "randomly looking for an article"...

But in fact Doublestein is "Julien Alexandre" (see : [10]), who said previously that he had "been following this "affair" for almost 3 years" ([11]). Mr Julien Alexandre, why do you try to appear as a newcomer ? Ilinka

Hi, this was a good joke from a collegue of mine, who I informed about the controversy going on Wikipedia. He wanted to make fun of this circus. My position didn't change since my very first posts : no editable article about this "affair'. Point.

Now, since everything needs to be justified, all the computers in the "company" I'm working for are displaying the same IP address, since we use a server and we're sharing an ethernet connection. Now, this collegue knows about the affair for much longer that what he said, he's not intersted in editing anything (even his so called article about epistemology (!). So I guess you can ban his account without any regrets (now that is demasked...it's a bit ridiculous). I would love to say that he's sorry about the confusion, but unfortunately it seems like he had fun doing this (which I can understand).

Thanks to Alain_r who put my attention on this matter, since he thought that I could be this Doublestein (for which I honestly feel ashamed, 'cause I wouldn't come with a new account freshly created, editing one or two little things about cosmology or whatever, and coming with : "it's funny to see that they're all editing just this article and nothing else...", I would do it much better!), and forced me to come back here to explain myself.

Therefore, I wish you again a nice time editing/protecting/banning/inspecting or whatever.

Julien Alexandre (who still doesn't have an account, and will not. 11:16, 02 november 2005

12 edits to Bogdanov Affair and you'll be banned ;-)

OK, more seriously: The problems with this article and its editors are handled by the Arbitration Committee. Until a final judgement is reached, the temporary injunction is in place: [12]

I read this temporary injunction so, that editors with more than about 75% of their edits in Bogdanov Affair should be blocked on sight, without wasting time to discuss contents of their edits. Less serious cases are asked not to edit the article.

So, you should have some edits in the article before any measure will be taken. And what happens then, will depend whether your edits are seen as constructive, I assume.

If you want to propose changes here, you would be entirely on the safe side.

Pjacobi 10:02, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. Since I don't want to get involved in a kind of revert war, I'll just introduce some proposal of changes according to factual elements. I'll base my first analysis on the comparison of the 2 versions that seem to be proposed consecutively after every revert or edit.

Line 19 It's written that the Ph D degrees were obtained from Ecole Polytechnique AND University of Bourgogne. This statement is factually false. Theses were defended "IN" Ecole Polytechnique, but the school didn't deliver any degree. Ph D degrees were delivered by University of Bourgogne.

Then, it's written that they passed with "the lowest possible passing grade" (honorable). This statement is factually false since the lowest possible passing grade, even if seldom given as well, is "Passable".

A bit further, Niedermaier is described as "not a specialist in the field of the Bogdanov". This statement is true. But it has nothing to do with the facts exposed. Otherwise, we should also write on the positive comments by Lubos Motl', mentioning some "interesting ideas", that it shouldn't be taken into account since he's not a specialist of quantum groups and non commutative geometry or KMS state.

As for the reports, I'm in trouble, since those documents are not public and are not aimed to be published anywere, unless there's an authorization from the author. I don't know if anybody here was provided with those authorizations... If not, then none of those reports excerpts should be published, positive or negative ones.

Concerning the CQG chapter, the CQG' Senior Publisher Dr Andrew Wray wrote that they issued a "statement", and not an internal e-mail. The quote can be extensive, since we have the written proof of what has been said. Therefore, mentionning it as an internal e-mail without consequences is not factualy true.

Further, the sentence after Eli Hawkins referee's report "however, that paper was published later in another journal" should be maintained since it illustrates once again that even with negative report in one peer-review journal, it's still possible to publish the same article in another. And this demonstrates some obvious failures through the peer-review system.

Line 65, about Charpak's comment on french TV show. The quote "(sic!)" is a POV since it should be "(sic) without ponctuation. It's misleading the reader to the idea that this comment was out of purpose. Maybe it was, but the wikiarticle can't judge about it. Then, "Tout le monde en parle" is refered as a "fancy" show. It's the same effect on the reader, this is just to point out the weakness of the context. Fancy is a qualificative adjective, and therefore shouldn't be used to refer to this show. (even if it's really fancy! ;)

Line 71. Some coments were "much" more positive or simply more positive : this is a POV as well. Since it's written that some comments were negative, there's no reason to write that the positive ones were "much" more positive. It's destabilizing the balance.

Line 88 about Internet Discussions. This point seems important. First of all, it's not factually true to generalize the involvment of Grichka in the Internet Discussions. Igor is the one who participated most of the time. Therefore, using "they" and forcing Grichka to endorse the behaviour of his brother Igor (even if they're twins) is not factually true. Keeping the version "Igor (and rarely Grichka)" seems more appropriate.

Further, about Charpak's critics by the Bogdanov, we're facing a legal problem. An insult is a statement or action which affronts or demeans someone. Technicaly, it can be either intentional or accidental. It this precise case, I would recommend so that everybody agrees that we write "insulting accidentaly", taking into account the context. Talking about irony is a non sense, considering that irony is a form of expression in which an implicit meaning is concealed or contradicted by the explicit meaning of the expression. Irony involves the perception that things are not what they are said to be or what they seem

Further in the same chapter, we can write that a few participants turned quite provocative and responded in a similar manner. Both versions are reunited in one without altering the sense or misleading the reader.

Concerning the "failed to convince most of the participants" or "any of the participants", I would recommend using most of the participants, since it's impossible to make a precise evaluation of whom they convinced or not. As for "meaningfull", I would recommend to keep "any scientific value" since not being meaningfull, it could still be intersting, which isn't the case for the participants involved, who clearly criticized scientific value.

Line 102, concerning the HKU confusion, I think it's not usefull to state that there's no link with the International Institute for Mathematical Physics in Vienna, since it's written a few lines after. The confusion was with the Hong Kong University. Leavin this sentence leads to elude the "real " confusion.

Line 122, concerning the Spires citations, making comparisons with the number of other publications citations makes no sense. Bogdanov's work was stated as hoax by the scientific community. Who would dare citing some papers widely considered as a hoax? The comparison would be meaningfull without the controversy. Maybe the papers wouldn't be cited more, but the context wouldn't be a problem. Therefore, considering factual elements, the spires chapter should be used just to emphasize the fact that a paper discredited by the scientific community is condemned.

About the conclusion, stating that strings theory didn't produce any valid predictions has nothing to do with the article, except trying to convince people that string theory isn't a better model than the one proposed by the Bogdanov, which hasn't be acknowledged by the scientific community yet, and we'll be reconsidered only if the Bogdanov manage to publish some unquestionable papers and demonstrations in the futur. Therefore, this sentence should be erased.

And finally, the adjective "complex" in front of "field of quantum theory" is a POV aimed at illustrating that it's barely impossible to understand. It should be erased as well.

I hope you will consider helpfull those elements that I tried to demonstrate following a NPOV and factual philosophy. Doublestein 12:46, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Doublestein :One more newcomer, a little smarter, but...

I've read that the Bog bros have been ironically nicknamed "Zweistein" in some forums.So that "doublestein" sounds funny to me. As usual the changes brought by him are almost exactly the ones that the B.B. want to see in the article. But there are still things you just can't change(you can't help introducing yourself to show that you've got a very good knowledge of the issue). It's almost a nice try. The next !

Only the ones who have already contributed to wikipedia before the beginig of the writing of the article about the "bogdanov affair" should be allowed to edit here.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ahahaha ! (talk • contribs) Pjacobi 15:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC).

Nice welcome. I don't have a very good knowledge of the issue, and never pretended so, since it's been only a few days that I found this article by consulting the articles linked to theoretical physics. As for my introduction, I just found it a positive attitude to introduce myself in a discussion where all participants are already familiar with each other.

I wonder how you can find my proposals for changes identical to Bogdanov expectations since I read it again, and I find it quite opposite to what they want (for example, I insist on maintaining the insults to Charpak, and I demonstrated why).

If it's for the mention "honorable", I'm sorry but this is totally factual. You can't write that it's the lowest passing grade. The lowest is "passable". But if you want to know my opinion, even "honorable" is a shame for a thesis.

I apologize for starting some articles on Wikipedia at the wrong moment. I don't want to edit this article, since it's protected by an injunction.

As for my pseudo, Doublestein is clearly and honestly a wordplay with Einstein. I didn't know that the Bogdanov were nicknamed Zweistein. And if you want to know again my opinion about it, which is POV, even halfstein or quarterstein would be pretentious as a nickname for the brothers, and they're two...

Therefore, since it's written it the Wiki's policy not to asnwer extensively to attacks when we're entering a new discussion, I'll stop answering your comment, and will wait for some answers to my proposals. I don't want to argue or be banned just for making a bunch of comments. 217.136.253.167 15:10, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't logged in. 217.136.253.167 is Doublestein. I apologize. Doublestein 15:15, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Some banned people are less banned than others

For example : rbj. I read in the history of the article : "(Moving of note about Schrodinger institute non-affiliation as per rbj's proposition - 23:38, 27 October 2005, NicholasTurnbull). And indeed, the number of "rbj's propositions" on Nicholas' talk page is impressing ! And it works, as Nicholas makes some changes ! He even thanks rbj : "If you would please tell me your opinion on the above I would be most grateful; I appreciate your continued assistance".

So, may all other ex-contributors still take part to the editing of the article, in the same way ?

Laurence

Dear Laurence: Of course; this is how Wikipedia works, we do things on the basis of community collaboration and consensus. Just because you are injuncted from editing the page doesn't mean you can't propose changes here; if there are any changes you feel that should be made, by all means suggest them, and an editor may implement them if they feel those changes are reasonable. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 16:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

actually Laurence, Ze miguel (talk · contribs) and i are less banned than the "participants in the external controversy (involving the Bogdanov Affair)" which were defined to be "YBM (talk · contribs), XAL (talk · contribs), ProfesseurYIN (talk · contribs), Igor B. (talk · contribs), CatherineV (talk · contribs), 82.123.187.53 (talk · contribs). Laurence67 (talk · contribs), EE Guy (talk · contribs), 82.123.46.149 (talk · contribs), 82.123.57.232 (talk · contribs), Luis A. (talk · contribs) and all others who meet the criteria." "Rbj (talk · contribs), a regular Wikipedia editor, and Ze miguel (talk · contribs), a new editor who has edited other areas, are banned from editing Bogdanov Affair, pending resolution of this matter." i just need to stay away from editing Bogdanov Affair directly. if you are Laurence67 (talk · contribs), you ain't supposed to be here at all because you were deemed an "external participant" not here to really make any contribution to Wikipedia at all, but are just here to defend the Bogdanov POV. i do other things here. r b-j 02:48, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

No : you have still your account because you "do other things here", indeed, in order to let you still do these things, on other subjects. But it doesn't mean that you have more rights than we have on this article. So, either we all have the right to take part to the discussion (and the right, more theoretical, to have an influence on the content of the article), or nobody has this right ! You are not "less banned" than us for this article.

Laurence

Actually, Laurence, rbj is not injuncted from posting here in this talk page; he is merely banned from editing the Bogdanov Affair article itself, as per the ruling of the arbitration committee, so he is "less banned" in the respect that he is permitted to remain a Wikipedia editor on condition that he does not edit the article. That is the only injunction presently against him. I would point out, however, that you are specifically banned from Wikipedia entirely as a consequence of the arbitrators' injunction, and I would ask that you please refrain from editing Wikipedia until the arbitrators decide to lift the ban. You may of course, however, e-mail me with your proposed changes (see the link in my signature). Regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 19:15, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

If your interpretation of the arbitrors' injuction is correct, it is even worse than I thought, as a travesty of justice... If it is not, you "understand" what you want... Anyways I won't waste my time to write you by mail, since nothing I could suggest has never been taken into account, when I was free to express myself here, even when I gave links to prove what I had written (especially concerning the insults to the Bogdanovs on the forums), it was just removed. So I don't see why you would take into account what I would suggest now, if I have to do it privatly.

Thank you, anyways, to provide me further proof of the partiality of Wikipedia about this article.

Laurence

To put it bluntly, Laurence: if you don't ask me for changes, of course they will never be made. I have no interest in wading through the detritus of this talk page, nor do I have the time; if you are unwilling to enumerate your concerns to me, then of course I can't implement your changes, and it is quite unreasonable to thus accuse me of partiality. If you really do have concerns, e-mail them to me in a concise and readable format, and I shall do my best to integrate both sides of the dispute as fairly and accurately as possible. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 17:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Whatever the banning status is, I think that a single notice on the article (protected to deal with vandalism/controversy) is all that is required, since it directs people to the talk page. Having two or more notices on the article itself seems like clutter. Metaeducation 08:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Back to the edu.hk domain name

Back in the archive 5 ([13]) of this discussion, there was this question from Rama :

All right, but how does this say that the postal address was provided by Bogdanov ? Igor's statement is that the HKDNR filed this information itself, and I can't see that this is invalidated in your mails (however weird a register filled out information on its own might be). Rama 21:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Being on vacation, I had the fanciful idea to try and buy a edu.hk domain name. So I went to the HKDNR registrar : [14], I filled the forms, gave an fancy number for the required documents (proof that I am really "schools, tertiary institutions and other approved educational institutions"), and promised to pay 200 HK$ (which I didn't pay, I didn't want to make a "real" false declaration !).

If I had paid, I could now be the happy owner of the domain name ilinka.edu.hk. Here is the mail I received from HKDNR :

Tracking No.: NDN0128888

Domain Name: ILINKA.EDU.HK

Registration Fee (HK$): 200

Contract Period: 1 year(s)

Here is the registration information of the above domain name:

Tracking No.: NDN0128888

Domain Name : ILINKA.EDU.HK

Domain Name Holder: ILINKA

Domain Name Holder Address: 3 rue des freres Bogdanov 75001 Paris

Administrative Contact

Name: ILINKA

Address: 3 rue des freres Bogdanov 75001 Paris

Phone No.: +32-01-00000000

Fax No.:

Email address: xxx

Technical Contact

Name: ILINKA

Address: 3 rue des freres Bogdanov 75001 Paris

Phone No.: +32-01-00000000

Fax No.:

Email address: xxx

Billing Contact

Name: ILINKA

Address: 3 rue des freres Bogdanov 75001 Paris

Phone No.: +32-01-00000000

Fax No.:

Email address: xxx

You can verify there [15] that the domain name ilinka.edu.hk is unavailable (I don't know how long they will wait for my payment...).

I'm very happy, because the HKDNR didn't try to fill my postal address with the address of some Hong Kong University ! Ilinka

Read the french fora !

... and you will see who insulted whom !

Erratum3 06:28, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Interesting topic

Interesting controversy, this! Wow, I didn't expect the science community to cause a hoo-ha here! --Adam Paul 21:58, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

do you remember Cold fusion? or Jan Hendrik Schön? it happens once in a while. r b-j 23:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

regarding Igor's latest complaint...

from John Baez's Bogdanov page : Indeed, many aspects of the original rumor are known to be in error. According to Niedermaier, both Bogdanoffs conducted their thesis defense on the same day, in a rented hall with TV crews present. In fact, it seems clear that the Bogdanoffs got their Ph.D.'s at different times. Grichka got a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Universite de Bourgogne on June 26 1999, passing at the lowest level. On the same day, Igor's thesis committee failed him. He later got a Ph.D. in Physics from the Universite de Bourgogne on July 8, 2002.

from the New York Times article: ''After two years at the University of Bordeaux, they moved to the University of Bourgogne and apprenticed themselves to Dr. Moshe Flato, founder of the journal Letters in Mathematical Physics and a prominent theorist known for his unconventional ways. When Dr. Flato died in 1998, a longtime associate, Dr. Daniel Sternheimer, a mathematician at C.N.R.S., the French center for scientific research, took over as the twins' adviser.

For the most part, however, the brothers were left to work on their own without much supervision, "pursuing ideas that are quite a bit out of the mainstream," said Dr. Jacobus Verbaarschot, a physicist now at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and one of the examiners for Grichka Bogdanov's doctoral thesis in 1999.

Dr. Sternheimer described the twins as stubborn "wunderkids" with very high I.Q.'s, who have a hard time understanding that they are not "the Einstein brothers" and prone to shooting themselves in the foot with vague statements and an "impressionistic" style. He called teaching them "like teaching My Fair Lady to speak with an Oxford accent."

Certainly they did not come off as the Einstein brothers in their dissertations. In June 1999, Grichka was granted a Ph.D. in mathematics by the École Polytechnique in Paris but with an "honorable," the lowest passing grade.

Igor, however, failed. The examining committee agreed that he could try again if he had three papers published in peer-reviewed journals, a common litmus test of legitimacy, Dr. Jackiw said.

"One has to have trust in the community," he explained. Igor's thesis had many things Dr. Jackiw didn't understand, but he found it intriguing. "All these were ideas that could possibly make sense," he said. "It showed some originality and some familiarity with the jargon. That's all I ask."

Igor got his degree in theoretical physics from the University of Bourgogne in July, also with the lowest possible grade, one that is seldom given, Dr. Sternheimer said.

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

So it appears that the WP article has switched around the two degrees. none of Igor's other edits are legitimate and he should never be allowed to edit this article about himself. he must be held to the ArbCom injunction and he is not fooling anybody with his sock-puppets. (what an incredible narcissist.) r b-j 18:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Systemic protection

It has been suggested, by Rbj, that the article be protected for a set period of time, being unprotected at intervals of perhaps a week for a scheduled window of perhaps two hours then again protected until the next scheduled editing window. This would reduce cleanup considerably Fred Bauder 21:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

just for everyone's information, the text for this proposal is at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Regarding_The_Bogdanov_Affair/Workshop#A_proposal_regarding_enforcement . i dunno where it is best to have any discussion regarding it, here or there. r b-j 21:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello

I did a copy-and-paste job spamming this article across Wikipedia. --J.Bogdanov 09:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Didn't get very far, though. You've been blocked indefinitely. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 10:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I've added some more Bogdanov Affair to Obesity and Oral sex. Good fun. I'm related to the brothers too! --Alexander Bogdanov 13:40, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Coming back

Now that the Arbitration Committee has reached a decision, I'm planning to come back to edit this article, which I think still needs modifications. However, I'm not certain if the ban decision applies to me or not. If anyone (admins in particular) feels that I should not edit this article because of the arbitration commitee decision, please state so and I will reconsider. Thanks. Ze miguel 15:28, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, you are entitled to edit this article, the criteria being that you are a genuine Wikipedia editor, and not merely a usernet-style warrior who happens to wage war on Wikipedia ("they are not Wikipedia editors but persons involved in the external dispute", in arbcom's words).

Obviously, I will ask you to act with particular tact and discernment. Rama 16:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

heck, i just assumed that the Final decision superceded Temporary injunctions and neither your nor my name is on it, Ze. a couple of days ago (after reading the Final decision) i did a simple revert after waiting an hour for someone else to do it. didn't get chewed out or blocked by anyone. The "edit" reverted was the same content that Igor has been trying to put in since the first ArbCom ruling and has been consistently reverted, but this time, the "editor" (i think we know who it is) was impersonating Fred Bauder. i wonder if he's gonno try impersonating Jimbo Wales next time? r b-j 17:04, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Both of your names were removed intentionally from the decision, please don't make us sorry. And don't taunt the Bogdanov's Fred Bauder 01:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I'll make proposals on the talk page first in order to keep in line with Rama's and Fred Bauder's requests. Ze miguel 09:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Please, please, remember WP:BEANS, r b-j. Best not give them new ideas. Thanks. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 00:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

you may be absolutely right, Nicholas. a similar argument has been made about investigative articles and programs regarding holes in security after 9/11 (e.g. an analysis on how easy it would be to toss anthrax into the tubes of the NYC subway.) but the counter argument is that the terrorists have these ideas anyway. r b-j 18:02, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Modification proposals

The following are proposals to modify the article, please discuss accordingly.

i hope you don't mind me interspersing comments, Ze.

No problem, r-b-j.

Alain Connes is an important French mathematician, recipient of the Fields medal. The following is a quote from him about the articles of the Bogdanovs: "Il ne m’a pas fallu longtemps pour m’assurer qu’ils parlent de choses qu’ils ne maîtrisent pas."; translated: "It didn't take me long to make sure that they were talking about things they don't fully understand." I think the quote should be included in the list of critic quotes, replacing another one for balance.

fine by me. i dunno if other editors or the admins or arbcom will like an "piling on". my feeling is if it is factual (with some documentable link trail), relevant, and salient, there should be no reason to exclude such information.

The source is Le Monde sorry, in French. In order to avoid piling on, I propose to remove another quote, for instance the one from Jacques Distler.

The venue where Georges Charpak said that the Bogdanovs are inexistent in science should be removed. It looks like a way to minimize the damage.

i think the venue is needed to support the factuality of the speaking of the statement. Charpak or his reputation has to defend the factuality of the content of the statement.

Fair enough, I won't add that.

Another domain name has been created in the Bahamas by the Bogdanovs just a few days after th-phys.edu.hk: maths-phys.edu.bs - the domain was registered as belonging to the famous Sorbonne University.

are they using it for some reason? i am not sure of the salence of this information. why add clutter. if they end up using the domain to make statements or claims or to post the results of real research, it becomes salient.

It was only used to publish comments on a french forum. The reason I thought it was relevant is that the contact information falselly lists Univ. Paris 4, which is La Sorbonne.

In 1991, the Bogdanovs wrote a book titled "Dieu et la Science" (God and Science). On the back cover, it is stated that they have PhDs in science. The Bogdanovs have maintained that this is an error from their book editor.

this is a known fact for quite a while. it has to do with the story of the brothers approaching John D. Barrow, a professor of mathematical sciences at the University of Cambridge, who says the brothers contacted him "to obtain Ph.D.'s very quickly...." "...and they tried to con me into becoming an examiner," he says. "There were two theses that they had submitted. They were laughable compendiums." As for the brothers, he says, "I regard them as mysterious people, not as hoaxers." (from John Baez's web page.) maybe it should be included. i don't want to be accused of "piling on" any dirt.

I had heard about that, but not all the details :) From what I understood, they were in a big hurry to get PhDs because they had an ongoing plagiarism lawsuit about the book "God and Science" (which they actually won) and the fact that they didn't have actual PhDs weakened their case. I don't know if any of this is relevant to the current article.

The lawsuit against the magazine Ciel & Espace is for slander. This should be mentioned.

probably. it's a quickie. also, if the lawsuit gets resolved in any way, that information should be included.

While the PhDs were obtained from the University of Bourgogne, a room was rented at the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique in Paris for the defense of both thesis. The director of Polytechnique tried to cancel the event because of concerns that the room would be filled with TV crews and journalists, and that the school would be seen as endorsing the delivery of the diplomas. The Bogdanovs refused to cancel the event.

some of this is in that original letter from Niedermaier. some is information that i have never seen before, but it does not surprize me. do you have some documentable evidence, Ze? (about the "director of Polytechnique tried to cancel the event because of concerns that the room would be filled with TV crews and journalists, and that the school would be seen as endorsing the delivery of the diplomas."?) i don't think it should be included if it can't be proven or at least supported by outside evidence.

Again in French, sorry: [16]. This is actually the article of the magazine Ciel & Espace that prompted the lawsuit. Quick translation: "[Dominique Grésillon, director of the Polytechnique doctoral school] answers that the Bogdanovs wanted to defend their thesis at Polytechnique in order to maintain confusion over their merits. 'When I heard that the thesis were going to be defended in our premices, while they have nothing to do with Polytechnique, I discussed the matter with some professors of the school. Some decided to attend the defences, which is a public event, nothing more'". Also look at this, from the Bogdanov themselves, in which they state that they were requested to cancel the event.

Ze miguel 14:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

r b-j 16:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your comments, r-b-j. BTW, I think the article is too long right now, and we should try to remove unnecessary cruft. -- Ze miguel 17:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

i think we need to be very, very, very careful about changing, adding, subtracting any substantial amount of content. i think this article needs to "settle down" and small evolutionary changes made rather than any big rewrite. i think the admins (like Nicholas Turnbull and, was it Metaeducation?) did a superb rewrite (even though i had problems with some deletions that later got fixed). r b-j 18:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Impossible article

Let me tell you why I think this article will remain an impossible target. The main resason is that most of editors are determinely concerned with personal feelings against Bogdanovs (RBJ et al). That imbued all their editing attitude. This obsession with the 2 brothers may come originally from their fame as TV stars or from their aristocratic "central europa" roots. Who knows? All this "affair" seems to be a direct effect of a sociological reality that has nothing to do with science.If the Bogdanovs were not known for extra reasons,their work would be seen as far different than it had been by most of the observers.Editors are now claiming special prerogatives and are diligently preparing a very negative article about their sacrificial victims (see Ze Miguel last post).When I read comments from RBJ I feel that his objectivity is locked away behind walls of irony,wit,distance and mistrust.He should know,however,that the brothers have achieved something that most of the editors had ever achieved before,not even himself (RBJ dit not get a PHD so far). The very essence of this article is a massacre game limited to the membership of those who had given good credentials for that, a subtle distinction that shut out many otherwise worthy potential editors. RBJ grew up in this article with a deep resentment against Igor.In addition, he developped a cunning acquisitiveness that in a normal editor would have been condamned as a deep moral flaw, scarring his character. He beleives Igor is hidden behind every post and he immediately writes it down. I don't think Igor spend his entire time to edit this inexhaustible article.Suspicions should be reserved for other infiltrators. (ATuileries-152-1-33-94.w82-123.abo.wanadoo.fr aka Igor Bogdanov - Note added by --194.2.44.95 12:27, 15 November 2005 (UTC))

Sorry but you have to (dis)qualify me in a different way.194.2.44.95 is not Igor's signature.Your obsession to see him everywhere ranks vividly among the worst problems here.Campaigning against Bogdanovs would end up in a total failure of this article.There are thousands users of Wanadoo in Paris: I am one of them. And I dare to say that I am not Igor (nor Gricshka).If I had something to hide, I would have made up an account and portrayed myself behind a foggy pseudo. I did not and therefore I left my IP visible. Try to use this evidence properly.

ya know, whether 82.123.61.94 is Igor or some supporter of the Bogdanov's doesn't really matter. i'm gonna direct this toward Igor and Grichka, because i think they're probably listening in. Igor and Grichka, perhaps you think that the very fact that you hold Ph.Ds. somehow qualifies your work product in some manner that supercedes the critique of the many physicists who have publically identified your work product as "nonsense" or "gibberish" or "pseudoscience". problem is, these other guys have PhDs also. and they have some creditials you do not have. they have publication records that have stood up to the scrutiny of their peers, the mainstream physics community. there are many pseudoscientists, crackpots, quacks, numerologists, pseudohistorians etc. that have legit PhDs and the fact they have PhDs does not detract from the legitimate criticism directed toward their published product. the veracity of their published work product must stand (or fall) on the basis of its merit, not on whether or not they have PhDs or some other credential.

Einstein had no PhD (that i am aware of) when he first published Special Relativity 100 years ago. (in fact, i have to read the article on him, because i dunno if he ever got a "regular" doctorate. i think he started on the faculty in Berlin without a doctorate and maybe only got honorary doctorates. i need to look into that.) and, i am sure, at first, his radical concepts were not initially accepted by the mainstream at first. at that time, the correct label to give his work would be Protoscience. but what happened is that the other physicists, with whatever flaws and self-centered ambitions they had, were more interested in truth and what worked and had to eventually accept the wisdom and value of his work product. if it had gone the other way, if Einstein's ramblings were inconsequetial and just physically wrong, if he would have gotten published in the first place, his work would have been dismissed by the mainstream community and most of us would have never heard of the guy today. then the correct label for his work product would be Pseudoscience. the fact that he had, or would get, a PhD would have and should have no effect on that.

some 20 years ago, i was a PhD student at Northwestern University in Evanston Illinois (and was and am ABD). i was a fully supported student (even though i left NU without a degree, at leat i left with no school debt). they like to think of themselves as the "Harvard of the Midwest" and indeed there are some very good programs there (journalism is one that quickly comes to mind), but the school is not in the same league as Harvard or Stanford or MIT or Princeton or similar. (certainly not in Electrical Engineering.) they (at least in the EECS department) were trying to increase their reputation but maximizing the publication output and, even the number of PhDs awarded. this is what we call "degree inflation". it's sorta like "grade inflation" or "publication inflation" but even worse. grade inflation is a dilution of the meaning of an intermediate result, degree inflation is a dilution of the meaning of an end result. even though i was ABD, i came face-to-face with the reality that my research then and there was truly garbage and I, not my advisor, not the department, put an end to it. i could not imagine myself defending this garbage in front of my examination committee. i had enough self-esteem to not buy into the notion that i had to have that PhD in order to have self-worth and not to participate in a charade that somehow i am a better person, a more competent electrical engineer or more astute intellectual than those who hadn't participated in such a charade. (this has had an effect in academic employment, although i have served on the faculty of the University of Sourther Maine in Portland and have taught classes as an adjuct in other schools, most recently the U of Vermont.) i am not saying that all PhDs granted are phony as this, but many are. 50 years ago, the PhD was a relatively rare creditial granted only to those who made, not just a novel contribution to the body of knowledge, but also a meaningful contribution to the body of knowledge. now, it seems that everybody and their dog has a Ph.D. or Ed.D. or D.Min or D.Engr. a ##D of some sort. the degree inflation has succeeded in completely diluting the value of the diploma in and of itself. it's so bad, that i could get a "Ph.D." from a mill in about 6 weeks for a few thousand dollars. how could that "diploma" have any bona fide value?

it doesn't mean that all PhDs are worthless as scholars. it means that their worth as scholars must be determined and supported by other, additional means. to become a scholar of worth, you actually have to do and continue to do scholarly work. work product with true intrinsic value, and not just PR. not just "window dressing'". unfortunately, it is true, in every discipline, that there are shallow, vapid, scholars that do little meaningful and novel research, but the little they do, they hype it up to the maximum. they present many papers at many conferences and get published in multiple journals, and use that to get tenure, research grants, and with that money they get many PhD students doing the grunt work for them, etc. this is the crap that is lamented by Martin Anderson "Imposters in the Temple: American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating Our Students of Their Future" (google this for some excerpts). some of these phony scholars are going to get away with it. that is, in my opinion, very sad but it is the case. you, Igor and Grichka, will not get away with it, because your work product has already been much more vetted after your initial publications, even though it was not sufficiently vetted in the degree granting process. there is only one way that i can think of to correct or reverse this, and PR (iamge grooming) is not the way. PR has worked a bit for you in the French theatre but not at all in the wider physics community and, i believe that will catch up to you in the French language community. eventually, many more French readers will begin to understand what those such as YBM or Alain or Charpak or others have already known and said about your work product and your books will become inconsequential, even to the public.

what you need to do, Igor and Grichka, is to work on your content rather than style. work on your substance rather than image. instead of trying to make it look to others like you're doing physics, you need to concentrate on doing real physics. you need to really worry about sweating the details, substantively considering the content of criticism and deal with it. either you have to prove the content of the criticism wrong, in a persuasive manner (that means you have to persuade the likes of Alain and Baez and Carlip and Woit and Distler and Schreiber, etc). you need to understand the other models (which your critics insist you do not) you need to explore what it is that really doesn't work in the other models and speak to those problems. you need present your work product at conferences where these very critics will be and listen to them. you are no Franck Wilczek nor Ed Witten nor Brain Greene nor Michael Duff. you need to really listen and learn from the likes of these persons if you ever plan to be physicists (that is recognized as such). otherwise you're "just" television personalities talking about physics instead of doing physics. (now that, in and of itself, is not so bad. i like Robert Krulwich or Ira Flato here in the states. google them, if you want to know who i'm referring to. you can compare yourselves to these guys, but you're no physicists. not yet, anyway.)

as for the article and the publicity, you have to accept, as celebrities or public persons, that you do not have the right to hide any dirty laundry. you certainly have the right to have non-facts that are presented factual information corrected, but, outside of your own website or publications that you finance yourself, you have no right to suppress factual, relevant, and salient information about your public work product, whether it is flattering to you or not. you have to accept that reality, and, if you really want to rehabilitate your image, you have to act as fully grown adults and start working on rehabilitating the content. sometimes people that have negative publicity have had later positive publicity offsetting that at a later time. e.g. Jimmy Carter has done that. r b-j 18:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)