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An open letter to the Bogdanov brothers - Feynman and Cargo Cult Science

Dear Drs. Bogdanov,

As individuals who have studied the fields of physics, you will undoubtedly be familiar with the work of Richard P. Feynman, the architect of modern quantum electrodynamics and one of the most influential theoretical physicists of the 20th century. My knowledge of physics is only that of an academic minor in computational physics; I have long admired Feynman for his ability to distil very complex and wordy subjects into understandable, plain terms that make sense to an undergrad. The recent discourse on this article and talk page reminded me of an excellent lecture he gave at the Caltech announcement address in 1974 entitled "Cargo Cult Science" . I think the following quotations apply exceptionally well here:

But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. [...] It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

With respect, and with no hard feelings on my part, you appear to be trying to do the exact opposite of this - trying to suppress the facts that disagree with your theory by removing them from the article, and questioning the motives and expertise of those who highlight them. Ultimately, your actions here on Wikipedia can be defined more or less as only that. It would be wrong of me to make assumptions on your work outside of Wikipedia based solely on that, because I haven't read your papers (well, I have read abstracts and made cursory examinations of your famous Initial singularity paper, but that isn't enough to make a proper judgement). That said, I do think this is indicative that you would, both on Wikipedia and in the scientific community at large, do well to take heed of Prof. Feynman's observation and to cultivate that absolute honesty of "bending over backwards" - specifically permitting those observations, and making them yourself, of those points that disagree with your theorem.

Taking another series of Feynman's lectures as an example, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, in that work he was capable of making his ideas understandable to a layman who does not have expertise in the field being taught; that is something else which I urge you to do, and to make your work available in a format that makes sense to those without your physics expertise. Then, nobody could impugn the bona fides of your work, since sound logical reasoning is generally clear regardless of the fields, and it would be possible for all of us comparative laymen to make sense of your work - and, if your work is as watertight to scrutiny as you consider it to be, that should be no problem.

In summary, I do think you would do well to reflect what you are actually doing against this benchmark, and to accept that the issues extend far beyond Wikipedia; just because we have an open editing community here does not mean that Wikipedia is in error by not agreeing with your viewpoint. Feynman is an excellent lead to take in your work.

Thank you, and I wish you all the best of luck in your endeavours.

Yours sincerely,

--NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 01:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Semi-protection

Testing Wikipedia:Semi-protection here both on the article and the talk page. Fred Bauder 12:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

As I said on your talk page, Fred, at the moment, semi protection is stopping anons from posting to semi protected pages, but it's doing nothing to newly created accounts, so it won't help here for now. However, brion has been informed. I bet it's fixed by the end of the day. I'd keep the tags here for now. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 12:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure this new policy should be used on talk pages. -- Ze miguel 14:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
If it is, this would probably be the only place it would be. It's an alternative to constantly blocking people. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 14:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The Arbitration Committee will probably use Wikipedia:Semi-protection as a remedy in any case where there are lots of socks concentrating on one or several articles. Whack a mole is a terrible waste of time. Protection can be lifted at any time to test the situation but it is probably permanent. Fred Bauder 14:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. I blocked LaurenceR today because the ban was extended to talk pages and his account is older than 4 days. Otherwise, yep, SP is probably the best way. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 14:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

This has not been mentioned so...

The block for users involved in the external event has been extended to talk pages, per the arbcom. So LaurenceR was just blocked indefinitely. Just a heads up. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 12:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

"And in my ears there is a silence like the sound of angel voices..." — Dorothy Parker
Best wishes, Anville 19:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

HKU and HKUST

The "HKU" section is a complete mess in this article. First, Hong Kong University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology are completely different institutions, and this article seems to contribute to this confusion. (It's like the difference between University of Massachussetts and MIT). Does anyone have any other sources for this part other than [1] ? -- Fuzheado | Talk 23:23, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Categorization

I disagree with the categorization modification that took place:

  • the article should remain categorized as a scandal - see previous discussion
  • the published papers were never intended to be hoaxes

If new categories are to be added, then Category:Protoscience (which includes Category:String theory and Category:Quantum gravity) or Category:Pseudophysics could be considered. -- Ze miguel 21:45, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

i left a note at Bwithh's talk page and intended to revert it but got distracted by another (really nasty) issue. i also don't want to be seen as editing the article very much, since the Bogdanov camp sees me as such a biased editor and i considered this change to be small potatoes. go ahead and fix it, Ze, however you see fit. r b-j 01:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, reverting to previous category.
and we need to look into and deal with Fuzheado's concern regarding HKU vs. HKUST. we'll probably have to look at the NYTimes and other news/mag articles and see what they say. r b-j 01:06, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
All sources that I was able to find only mention HKUST. PS: Damn, this place has become so quiet, lately :) -- Ze miguel 14:25, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the assertion that the theses and articles were not intended as hoaxes. a hoax is meant as a joke. the Bogdanoffs' publications were not submitted as such, they were a means to an end, that is getting PH D's. If the theses and publications were indeed spurious (an opinion I tend to agree with on the basis of the caliber of some of the critics), the Bogdanoff case would more properly be qualified as a con. --Svartalf 19:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

and if all the "truth" (whatever that is) were known, perhaps con game is the best category to describe this. but as best as we all can tell, the Bogdanovs actually believe what they wrote as a valid and salient physical cosmology. if that is true, they're not even con artists, but cranks or quacks or crackpot or whatever you want to call it. then the best term would simply be pseudoscience or pseudophysics or, if you want to allow for some possibility that they will someday be vindicated, the category is protoscience. r b-j 04:21, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with r-b j, they actually believe themselves to be great scientists. -- Ze miguel 09:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Unprotecting article

In response to a request from Glenzierfoot on 22:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC), I am unprotecting this article and talk page. Since I am not a party to this article in any way, I will keep track of it for a few weeks and will re-protect it if the problems start again. Hope things work out. Best,--Alabamaboy 00:14, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually I'm going to reprotect it. Too soon. --Woohookitty(cat scratches) 03:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Yep. I was just coming back here to do that myself. At least people can't see they were given the opportunity. Best,--Alabamaboy 14:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Enough to make a cat laugh...

...this whole thing is. If I may jump in with some unasked for advice? Here's a tip: nobody -- NOBODY -- is gonna look at this article and say "Gee these Bogdanov brothers are the cat's pajamas! I mean, we are talking about some A-number-1 ace scientists here!" regardlass of what the B-Boys do. Nobody but a complete idiot, and idiots don't matter much. I mean, people can read between the lines. People can get the drift of somebody's case. So don't worry about it so much. It's not like the B-Boys are gonna get rehabilitated and rise to the Nobel Prize based on what's in this article. They are who they are. Chill y'all. My two cents. Herostratus 10:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

"Mention Honourable"

From Dissertation:

In Francophone universities, the procedure is roughly the same, however, the term applied to a study associated with masters work is referred to as a "mémoire," and one associated with doctoral work is referred to as a "thèse." Either work can be awarded a "mention d'honneur" (excellence) as a result of the decision by the examination committee, although these are rare.

However, this article suggests that "mention honourable", when awarded by a university, is the lowest possible passing grade. One or the other is clearly wrong; I do not know which. If anyone would be so good as to explain this to me, I would be most grateful. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 06:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Quickly translated from http://www.inapg.fr/abies/soutenance.htm:
Concerning mentions, the reference text (law of April 27 2002), only indicates: "Admission [of the thesis] implicates attribution of one of the following mentions: honourable, very honourable, very honourable with congratulations".
  • The mention "very honourable with congratulations of the jury" is an exceptional distinction, for an exceptionnally successful work (gloating reports, quality publications, brilliant defense, unanimous opinion of the jury in a secret ballot vote)
  • The mention "very honourable", which is the standard mention delivered in most cases, deals with a thesis presentation accepted with minor remarks, at least one publication (or it's equivalent in certain disciplines), an original scientific result, with a good oral presentation.
  • The mention "honourable" corresponds to a thesis which presents notable imperfections; even if it was accepted by two thesis reporters [fr:rapporteurs] and the responsible person for the establishment [head of the school, university], it causes objections or important remarks and has no publication of quality.
So both this article and the Dissertation article are correct: "very honourable with congratulations of the jury" and "honourable" are rarely attributed, but for different reasons. Other French universities have similar explanations, but this one is more detailed. HTH. -- Ze miguel 09:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


I am sorry, but Ze Miguel comment in connection with the PHD mentions is not only approximate: it is false. The law of April 27, 2002 does not apply to the theses of Bogdanoff. The regulations which apply to the delivery of a doctorate depend only on the date on which the registration in thesis was made. In the case of the Bogdanoff brothers, it was in 1991. Therefore, the regulation that applies in their case is the law of 23 novembre 1988. Here is the law text (http://www.andes.asso.fr/GUIDE/annexe/node11.php)  :

"Toutefois, les dispositions de ces arrêtés restent applicables aux candidats inscrits en vue de l'obtention de l'un de ces diplômes et ayant choisi, conformément aux dispositions transitoires prévues par l'arrêté du 5 juillet 1984 relatif aux études doctorales. de poursuivre la préparation de leurs travaux et de les soutenir dans les conditions prévues par les textes antérieurement en vigueur."

In English: "However, the provisions of these decrees remain applicable to the candidates registered for obtaining one of these diplomas and having chosen, in accordance with the transitional provisions envisaged by the decree of 5 July 1984 relating to the doctoral studies to continue the preparation of their work and to support them under the conditions envisaged by the texts before in force."

It is clear. Grichka passed his thesis in 1999. Igor in 2002. They started their thesis in 1991, long before the "new doctorate" mentionned by Ze Miguel (27 april 2002). Therefore, as the law stipulates, the only legal text that applies to the Bogdanoff thesis is the text of July 5,1984 (http://guilde.jeunes-chercheurs.org/Textes/Doct/A840705-2.html) :

"L'admission ou l'ajournement est prononcé après délibération du jury. L'admission peut donner lieu à l'attribution de l'une des mentions suivantes : passable, honorable ou très honorable."

In English: "the admission or the adjournment is pronounced after deliberation of the jury. The admission can induce the attribution of one of the following mentions: passable, honourable or very honourable."

I know well the circumstances in which Bogdanoff passed their theses at the University of Bourgogne. Taking into account their celebrity (and to avoid discussions), it was decided to allow a "discrete" passing grade to them (Honourable) and not at all "the lowest passing grade" (passable). Insofar as it was the text of 1984 which applied to the theses of Bogdanoff, the jury knew perfectly that the "Honourable" ranking was not the lowest one (which was indeed "passable"). Consequently what is written in this article is absolutely false and I will correctet it.

The lowest mention may or may not be "honorable", but as a matter of fact "honorable" mention is only given to poor thesis (according to the committee point of view), and this is precisely why it was given in that case (I checked this with the brother's last advisors). In fact what the law says about this is rather unimportant (in my mind). What is important is what people work in the field think about it, and this is what has to be reported. This is even more true that the 1984 cited above may be outdated: I know several people who got a "très honorable avec félicitations du jury" mention, which is not mentioned here. When I got my PhD, the only two mnetions that were delivered by my university were "honorable" and "très honorable". Maybe each university has some freedom here.
In France "honorable" mention is nothing more than an acknowledgement of the fact that the student spent some time doing a PhD (which the brothers probably did). It does not say that good results were obained. In fact it does say the contrary: it says that the student is not considered by the committee as brilliant enough to remain in this field of research. This is true in physics, and probably in many other fields.
So if one really wants to improve this minor point of the text, it should be stated that the "honorable" mention is extremely low and very rarely given. Alain Riazuelo 14:25, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I have updated the text, thanks for your remarks. -- Ze miguel 15:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


CQG STATEMENT

On January 10 / 2006, I sent an email to Nicholas Turnbull saying, in part  : "I would like to correct with your help some critical errors or deformations without being suspected by some editors to rearrange the truth in our favour." Further in the mail, I presented some salient proofs regarding these errors and I was asking Nicholas to correct the article. Unfortunatly, Nicholas did not react to my message and I have to intervene myself on this page in order to modify the following point.

Here are some interesting things that we disclose here about the famous "CQG Official Statement" published here.

This "statement" was presented by Baez as an "official document" issued by CQG editorial board around november 1st 2002. In fact, as we wrote many times, it originally was merely an internal discussion which became "official" because it was presented and "seen" as such by many readers. Here are the proofs of what we claim.

First, here is a link towards an article of the bulletin of the "Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics division of SLA" http://www.sla.org/division/dpam/pam-bulletin/vol30/no3/physics.html

One finds, in reference n° 13 of the references quoted by the author :

http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind0211&L=pamnet#11

One can see the original and official text issued by Andrew Wray and H. Nicolaï of CGQ on November 11 2002, in response to the charges of hoax!!!

http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0211&L=pamnet&T=0&F=&S=&P=3647

As you can see, the so called "official statement" which circulated on SPR and elsewhere was only -as we said here some time ago- " a briefing note for CQG Editorial Board members, who were receiving enquiries from colleagues and the media. The "official" text that was clearly released in the public domain sounds quite different but was never known (because it was kept more or less secret by the californian physicists whose interest was to promote the "negative" version of Nov.1 instead.

Here is the integral version of November 11. As you can see, it reads very different from the previous version  : http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0211&L=pamnet&T=0&F=&S=&P=3647 


Date:         Mon, 11 Nov 2002 10:38:46 +0000
Reply-To:     andrew.wray@iop.org
Sender:       "Archive of slapam-l (PAMnet)" <PAMNET@LISTSERV.ND.EDU>
From:         Andrew Wray <andrew.wray@iop.org>
Subject:      Classical and Quantum Gravity
Comments: To: SLAPAM-L@lists.yale.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I'm writing on behalf of the Institute of Physics in response to a recent discussion on this list re the following paper:

'Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime' by G Bogdanov and I Bogdanov, Class. Quantum Grav. 18 4341-4372 (2001)

As you might expect, a number of our readers have contacted us about this and it has been widely discussed online.

Our position is this: Classical and Quantum Gravity endeavours to publish original research of the highest calibre on gravitational
physics. It is one of the highest standard journals in its field and makes continuous effort to maintain and improve the quality of
research communication. In common with many journals, we consult among a worldwide pool of over 1,000 referees asking two
independent experts to review each paper. A third referee is selected if the first two disagree.  45% of submitted articles are rejected
and almost all accepted articles are revised before publication.  The paper 'Topological field theory of the initial singularity of
spacetime' by G Bogdanov and I Bogdanov made it through this review process and was therefore published in the normal way.

At present, there are no plans to withdraw the article. Rather, the journal publishes refereed Comments and Replies by readers
and authors as a means to comment on and correct mistakes in published material.

We have passed this information on to the community and ask that if your colleagues enquire about this, you forward this e-mail
on to them.

Thank you for your help with this matter.

Regards,


Dr Andrew Wray

Senior Publisher
Classical and Quantum Gravity
Institute of Physics Publishing


Professor Hermann Nicolai

Honorary Editor
Classical and Quantum Gravity
Albert Einstein Institute


It is clear that this version is almost the opposite of the "known" one. The text above protects CQG's referees, the quality of their work and the papers they allow to be published. This was a clear and legitimate reaction of the editorial board. Unfortunatly, since the community (represented, at that time, by Baez et al) seemed to be satisfied with the first "offensive" versione that circulated everywhere, Andrew Wray and Herman Nicolaï decided that the second version could as well sleep for ever in a forgotten place. This is exactly how an illigitimate "image" slowly invades some reality. This is exactly why our "Topological Field Theory" CQG paper became "an affair". All of the Wikipedian editors can check the veracity of what is presented here. Without violating any interdiction or being suspected of "vandalism", I will modify this point on the article and insert the legitimate version at the place of the non official one. I hope I will not be reverted because of this change that every honest editor could understand. In a more general way, I hold other proofs likely to correct other deformations or mistakes that I would like produce in the future (if I am allowed to do it, of course). Thank you for your attention. Igor

Igor, as far as i can tell, you still may not edit the article (or this space, but if i had anything to say about it, i would not proscribe that). i am reverting your edit to the article until it can be verified by recipients that this is the actual email promulgated by the Editorial Board of CQG. Steve Carlip was on that board and was the person to originally supply that other statement that is less flattering. is the "first" version a fabrication? did the Editorial Board officially change their mind about it? did they withdraw their decision that, in retrospect, your paper should not have been published in the Journal? r b-j 16:39, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
for everyone's info (particularly admins), i believe the latest sock-puppet for Igor is Govin (talk · contribs). just a "heads up". r b-j 16:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
These two messages are different. The first one was issued by the Editorial Board on November, 1st [2]. Then, on Nov, 11th, the Institue of Physics (which owns the CQG journal) issued another statement [3]. The Institue of Physics owns many journals, their view on the affair may differ from that of the GQG editors. The second message was sent by Andrew Wray on behalf of the IoP, but was probably not written by him. It does not mean that Andrew Wray agreed with its content. Actually, it may very well because IoP did not quite agree with the initial CQG board message that it asked Mr Wray to distribute a slightly toned down message. Note that this second message does not say that the paper is "good" or "bad" (although the sentence "As you might expect, a number of our readers have contacted us about this and it has been widely discussed online" clearly suggests what the IoP thinks about it), it states the probably true fact that the peer-review process had been performed according to the usual rules, and that no withdrawal of the paper was planned. It is not a surprise that the IoP wanted to emphasize these two points. A bad peer-review for one of its journal might discredit the whole peer-review process the IoP imposes to the journals it owns. Moreover, probably most people would indeed agree that even though publishing this paper was a bad move, withdrawing it would be an even worse move. Not that the Bogdanov would not deserve it in some way, but because from an ethical point of view it would probably be considered as crossing the red line.
In any case, maybe people who do not work in science do not understand this well, but the important point is not the referee reports or the fact that a given paper is published in this or that journal. The important thing is what the scientific community thinks about a paper, and how inspirational the paper is for people who work in the corresponding field. In some fields, the peer-review process becomes decreasingly important since papers are online before they are submitted: you no longer need a journal to make your work available. One can probably argue about this, but it certainly has several advantages. The fact that a paper is then published in a given journal is not much more than an estimate that the paper may be a good one, or, if you prefer it the other way round, an indicator of the average quality of what is published in this journal.
So, regarding the Wikipedia article, if you really want the IoP statement to be included, you can do it (provided its origin is confirmed), but you should not remove the previous CQG statement, since its authenticity was confirmed. These two are certainly not two versions of a single statement, but two different statements. In my opinion, the IoP statement does not bring much to the affair since the IoP does not explicitely comment the paper itself.
Alain Riazuelo 18:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I forgot: it is unsurprising to note that when Igor put the IoP statement above, he crucially truncated it by removing the IoP signature. Alain Riazuelo 18:48, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Introduction

The reference to Sokal affair is wrong. The article states that the Sokal affair was to prove the shortcomings of peer-reviewing processes in theoretical physics, which is totally wrong. If I remember and understand correctly, the Sokal paper was poking fun at new liberal journals which publish any garbage without properly seeking advice or review from scientists; it's not poking fun at science or process of science itself. Can someone look into this? Temporary account 00:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Where does the article say this? At the bottom, it says that the Sokal Affair transpired when "the physicist Alan Sokal published a deliberately fraudulent article in the humanities journal Social Text in order to demonstrate the risk of postmodernist academics accepting scientific validation without adequate evaluation." Emphasize humanities journal and postmodern academics, please. . . . Ah, I see, under "Origin of the affair", when it talks about Max Niedermaier—but in that sentence, the phrase "written to prove shortcomings in the peer-review system of theoretical physics" refers to the Bogdanovs' "work", not Sokal's. Anville 17:06, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I tried to straighten out those sentences in the "Origin" section, just to avoid the chance of confusion. Also, I nixed the "Fan sites" under External Links; hopefully no one will be too upset about this. Anville 17:23, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

"Entangled" how?

I'm intrigued by the claim that the article has become "entangled with the external event", but not intrigued enough to read through the many archives here, and I didn't really see anything about it on the arbitration page.

(I'm assuming that "entangled" means more than merely that persons involved in the affair are editing the article; that's a commonplace. To me "entangled" suggests causality in the other direction; that is, that the article is somehow influencing ongoing events related to the Bogdanovs.)

So could we have a brief summary somewhere of this "entanglement"? --Trovatore 23:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, see, the original Bogdanov Affair and this article were emitted from the same source at the same time, so their quantum states must be described together even though the two are cyberspatially separated. Measuring the polarization of this article would affect the probabilities with which the Bogdanov Affair will be polarized, even though the two are at opposite ends of cyberspace. Of course, one cannot use this cyberwiki-quantical entanglement to transmit information faster than light, but it is still a good example of "arbitration at a distance." Anville 13:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV ?

Why did you add one critic more against the Bogdanoff Brothers whereas you removed several sites rather positive for them ? Silasi 11:15, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessary message at the top of the article

I commented out the giant notice at the top of the article warning editors that they may be mistaken for sockpuppets. How long has the damn thing been up there? The Arbcom case closed about four months ago. Anyone who tries to edit the article will still see it in the edit box. --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:38, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, not if he edits it from a subject-header link. I guess the worst-case scenario (participant in the external event stumbles on the article not knowing about the arbcom decision, edits it, gets banned without fair warning) is pretty unlikely by now, but still I can see that the notice had a purpose. --Trovatore 18:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


From PNA/Physics

It is just about the "Affair"

I know this article has been subjected to arbitration etc, anyway I want to give my opinion and purpose some changes. The article is about the Bogdanov Affair, it is not about the Bogdanov brothers. I am quite sure their papers where just an hoax, but still cannot understand the reasons for the following lines also receiving the same low passing grade of "honorable", one that is seldom given, as told to New York Times science reporter Dennis Overbye by Bogdanov Ph.D. advisor Dr. Daniel Sternheimer. In justifying the conferring of doctoral degrees to the Bogdanovs, Dr. Sternheimer told the Times, "These guys worked for 10 years without pay. They have the right to have their work recognized with a diploma, which is nothing much these days.

It seems to me this is afree attack against the brothers, more than an additional info about the Affair. I purpose to change it with (something like) ..."honorable", that is the lowest grade for passing the PhD examination... The current version sounds forced to me. gala.martin (what?) 22:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Just a note—I think you mean "gratuitous attack" rather than "free attack"; the latter doesn't mean much in English. --Trovatore 23:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Space / matter

Things like "Learn physics or don't interfer with facts.Wikibee is right.Galaxies were not "created" by space.Ask around you before reverting to a ridiculous sentence" make no sense, as far as I can say.

Simply put, soon after the beginning of the Universe, space was loaded with an enormous density of pure energy, which converted to matter - anti-matter, back to energy, and so on; hence the notion of "temperature" of the Universe (density of energy in space), the various "eras" of sub-aotmic particles which rythm the early instants of the Universe, and the puzzle about matter -- where is all the missing anti-matter gone ? So yes, you can say that space created matter, probably more that say that it did not.

Of course, I look forward to hearing what User:Alain r will say about this; I aknowledge that I hold a mere master in particle physics, while he is a specialist in cosmology. Rama 17:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Stating that space "creates" matter is something that can be either right, ambiguous, misleading, or wrong, depending on the context.
If you consider ordinary matter, then it is diluted by expansion an there is no net creation of matter in the universe today : the number of nucleons (say) within a volume determined by distant galaxies is more or less constant (if one neglects proper motions and matter-antimatter interactions). Of course, if you consider superticious theories such as steady-state cosmology, then there is matter creation within a comoving volume such that the matter density remains constant as the comoving volume increases (so that the product of both increases).
Now, if you have in mind something like dark energy, then you have a form of matter with a constant (or slowly decreasing) energy density, whereas a comoving volume increases because of expansion, so that the product of two increases with time. In this case, you may say that "matter" (i.e., in this case, dark energy) is created within expanding space, although it is not very explicit because it is not the expansion that creates this form of matter, but the behaviour of this form of matter that makes its comoving energy increase with time. In the most extreme case, you may have some very exotic forms of energy whose energy density increases as space expands. In this case, you face the very counter intuitive run-away situation where the faster space expands, the faster the energy density increases. In this case (and in this case only), one may reach the extreme situation where the average energy density may become bigger than the binding energy of any objet (in fact this occurs within a finite amount of time), so that any object will ultimately be torn apart by expansion. For this reason, such an hypothetical event is called a Big Rip.
Finally, if you have in mind a process like black hole evaporation, or cosmic inflation, you may want to say that there is some matter creation by a gravitational field. For inflation this does not occur for the background inflationnary field, but for its perturbations, which experience some sort of "amplification" (an unfortunately misleading term, actually) during an accelerated phase of expansion. These perturbations are then converted into ordinary matter at the end of the inflationary era (see preheating and reheating... if they are created one day) and are likely to be the seeds of the galaxies we observe today. Just to make sure : none of these topics have ever been addressed by the Bogdanov brothers. They are completely ignorant of such things, just as they are completely ignorant of more or less anything in physics. Alain Riazuelo 16:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Comparison deletion

The prior comparison of "This figure is extremely low when evaluated against the number of citations made to papers written by other physicists who have given critical evaluations of the Bogdanovs work." is not a proper comparison as it is highly misleading. The Boganovs are new to people who have been published, since 2002, they haven't had as much time to be cited as someone who did work in 1982, and has had time for their popularity and credibility to grow for 24 years, 20 years on the Boganovs. They probably are very uncited, but why not compare them to other graduates, first time published authors, who graduated in 2004. What is the average, etc?

KV 17:10, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Searching for a fairer comparison, I came across "However, the citation count can be assessed only several years after publication" [4]. Telling.
KV 16:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
More interesting info here: [5]
I'm no longer sure any comparison by citations would be fair, as I don't imagine that it would be too large of a field, and that article clearly states that comparing by citations may not be accurate for small fields, and I would imagine with some of the radical claims made by the two that the field is small. And it seems that we could only compare it to others in the field, so someone who is cited on papers on the dynamics of a black hole wouldn't be comparable to the Bodganov's discussing the creation of the Universe. There is a lot of other damning evidence so far though.
KV 16:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, the Bogdanov systematically replied to any criticism "This guy is not expert in our field". But if you look at the Bogdanov published papers and citation list, their "field", whatever it is, does not exist at all, because first, they have published an incredibly small number of papers (not more than 5 at the beginning of the affair, three of which which were identical up to the typos), and second, these papers were not cited at all at that time (they are still not cited, which the Bogdanov explain by saying that the affair gave everybody a bad a priori about their work). So it does have some relevance to mention that the people who criticized them had some expertise in the way research is done in physics. Should they have been criticized only by people who had never published any paper, the situation may have been different, but it is not the case here.
Regarding your other question (citation stats), it is true that it varies significantly from one field to another. But actually, cosmology is a very hot topic, and good papers are extensively cited. The most striking example is the first release of the WMAP data, which was published in 2003, and which is now one of the top-cited papers of the history of physics. This is an extreme example, because anybody in astrophysics who needs a value of a cosmological parameter for any reason will take what is quoted in the WMAP paper (and cite the paper). Still, any good paper in cosmology is extensively cited (a few tens if not a few hundreds citations within a small amount of years).
Now, how many papers/citations can you expect at the end of a thesis ? In principle it is something between 2 and 12 papers, some of which are expected to have a few citations. Usually papers are published during the last year of the PhD, so their citation number is low at the time of the defense. In the case of the Bogdanov, you may wonder how to deal with them, since they begun their PhD in 1991, waited more than 10 years before their first papers, keeping in mind that they have claimed that they were working on related issues as early as 1977 (so that your remark that people "who did work in 1982, and has had time for their popularity and credibility to grow for 24 years, 20 years" in fact does apply to the Bogdanov). Whichever way you evaluate them, they are at the bottom of the list (at least when I compare them to my own stuff or my colleagues' who work in cosmology) : no paper at the time of their first defense, first paper published 8 years after the expected end of their thesis in 1994. This is appalingly low. It also has to be noted that none of their four advisors nor their numerous thesis referees ever published something with them, nor even cited their work, which, as far as I know, is extremely uncommon if not unique. Also, when you consider controversial stuff, such as the ekpyrotic universe, you clearly see that a controversial stuff can make people react, as long as there is anything good in it. I understand your point about the sentence you removed, but I find it useful to mention that a lot of experienced physicist all reached the same conclusion about the quality of their work (just keep in mind that some people's first guess was that it was a hoax), and that even the people who more or less supported them do not cite them (except in a blog entry — but presently science is not done in blog entries). Alain Riazuelo 23:46, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
My argument is in no way that they are credible, only that it is unfair to compare them with others who have had much more time to be cited. If the statement were to instead argue that it is unusual for a paper to be so rarely cited, that would be fair. But to claim that people who have had years longer were cited much more often would be an unfair comparison.
For example, would it be fair to suggest that a rookie sports player, just out of college, first year in whatever league they're in, is less of a player than a 10 year veteran because that veteran had won many more awards in that league than them? No. Would it be fair to say that the veteran scored more career goals or points or runs than the rookie? No. However, it would be fair to note that other rookies score better on the average.
A comparison of people in a similar situation is necessary. If the field is cosmology, then it would be fair to compare them to others who published their first papers within a year or so of them. However, it is not fair to compare them to others who have been published several times years before them who have had time to improve vastly and had more time to accumulate citations.
You could compare the type of misleading information to the information in Michael Moore's film, Bowling for Columbine. While it is completely accurate to say, as he did, that a people died last year of gun related deaths in Germany, and b people in Canada, and c people in Russia, and d people in Britain, and so on... and x people died of similar deaths in the USA, it is misleading because there are so many more people in the USA. Though the USA has more gun deaths per capita, Moore exagerates it by not giving the information per capita, but in raw numbers of which the United States was the most populous nation of them. It is this type of misleading statement the comparison was. A more suitable comparison would have to be found, because it's the means, and the conclusion that the Bogdanovs' papers is the end. The end, however true, does not justify the means of the misleading comparison. Find a fair comparison and I have no problem.
KV 04:47, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
OK, so I compared to my own stuff. I would say that regarding publication and citation rate, I am in the average of the cosmology community. I defended in the last days of december 2000, so it is quite easy to spot papers that cited mine before my defense (I took all those that were published (possibly as preprints) in 2000 or before). I got 11 papers, with a total of around 65 citations (I did not remove self citations, so the number must be closer to 50, I think). I as said, this is not much, since most of my papers were finished in 2000. These works were done with 10 collaborators. So basically, three years after having begun my PhD I was more or less part of the scientific community, with close collabotors, post-doctoral offers, several papers and a reasonnable number of citations. This is actually nothing more than what is expected from you after a three years PhD thesis (brilliant people have better stats, and are drafted (i.e. get a tenure-track or permanent position) earlier than I was). Since then, I have the impression that it has growed at a more or less steady rate of 100 to 150 citations per year (the number of paper increases but not the citation rate, since a paper citation lifetime is on average something like two years, see here if you are really interested). If you compare with the brothers, three years after they had begun their PhD (1991 + 3 = 1994), they had been fired from their first university, they had to find a new advisor, they had not published anything, and their only claimed collaborator (André Lichnerowicz) cannot testify he was a collaborator since dead men don't talk (he died in 1998). Even if you give them an extra 5 years (i.e. 8 years after they had begun their PhD, in 1999), they still are in the same situation, with no papers, no obvious collaborator, and an extra advisor since the previous one had died (whether he had collaborated with him is a matter of faith since, again, dead men don't talk). If you give them an extra one year, then they are 9 years after the begining of their PhD (exactly as I am now), and they are still without known collaborators, nor any paper, one brother failed his defense, the other barely succeeded (don't ask me why). If you look at now, you are 15 years after the begining of their PhD, 29 years after (according to them, see [6]) André Lichnerowicz was aware of their "ideas"/"work". They are still without any known collaborators (I even checked with their last advisors that they never really worked with them), only 6 papers (4 of which are identical), for a total of 3 citations. Also, keep in mind that they do not present themselves to the general audience as modest PhD students, but they claim to have found the ultimate mystery of the origin of the universe (see, e.g., their book or the abstract of the "seminar" they give in the French chapter of the self-proclaimed high IQ society Mensa International, [7]). So the problem is that they claim they are physicist, which obviously is not the case. They did try very hard, and maybe they even convinced themselves that they has succeeded, but they failed. Alain Riazuelo 10:19, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
There you go, put that as the comparison. The average person in the field will recieve 100 citations per year, and after (x) years, the Bogdanovs only recieved 6. That would be a fair comparison.
KV 17:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, this is already done in Follow ups to the Bogdanovs' work. But the part you removed was about the people who first criticized the brothers and/or thought they had made a hoax. These people had credentials, which the brothers tried to deny. Alain Riazuelo 12:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, can we make it mention their accomplishments without comparing them to the brothers? My only problem, and one that I will stand firm on, is that it is an unfair and misleading comparison. If we can give the information without comparing the two, or compare the brothers on a fair basis, that is fine. For example, we could say that those who have critiqued their paper as a hoax had such and such an accomplishment, and serves such a post at such a university. But we don't then say that the brothers only have such and such credentials, because that would be making that unfair comparison.
KV 17:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Rama's assumptions

I'm kinda surprised Rama freezes everyone who slightly diverges from his views of the article as a "sock P." of the brothers. I am not. And probably King Vegita is also not a sock P. Perhaps Rama should apply some physics training in order to understand correctly some edits. One thing to be a "pro" in sexuality drawings (User : Rama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rama/Sexuality_drawings) another one to be a good editor in physics. If you disagree you can always email me.

Having over 500 edits in completely unrelated articles, including building some articles from the ground up, I would hope I wouldn't be considered a sock puppet.
KV 16:09, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I freeze and block anyone who comes to Wikipedia to begin editing this article right away and nothing else, in strict compliance with the policy edicted by the CAr. The fact that these people tend to always have the same view of the affair is something I leave to your sagacity. My personal opinion on the matter is quite out of the question.
As for my formation, I fear that your wild guesses about my modest person are stretching too far as well; I happen to be a physicist, though I am not specialised in cosmology (and have never suggested that I was). Though I am flattered that you should appreciate my drawings, I certainly do claim to have some experience with the scientific community. Rama 09:53, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
PS: most of this reply adresses the first, unsigned comment. I assume that KV does not condone the insinuation that I "freezes everyone who slightly diverges from [my] views". Anyhow, this is no the case. I am far too busy to spend my time watching every other edit for compliance to my alleged opinions; I have a very simple criterion to use (number of edits), and I would be foolish not to use this to save my time. Rama 10:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

3/7 < 1

The article claims their papers were cited 3 times in seven papers, is that right? How can that be true? Zyxoas (talk to me - I'll listen) 12:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The brothers wrote 6 articles, and one unpublished preprint. The SPIRES database gives 0 citations for 4 of these articles, 1 citation for one of them, and two citations for the last one (see [8]). The preprint does not have any citation as well (see [9]). Alain Riazuelo 14:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I find the nature of these citations interesting. "Space-time metric and the KMS condition at the Planck scale" has one citation, in "Problem of constructing discrete and finite quantum theory" (2002) by Felix M. Lev, which is cited three times (all three papers also written by Felix M. Lev). Google Scholar doesn't show that this paper ever appeared in a journal. The passage which cites the Bogdanoff paper reads as follows:
The state of the art of the investigations involving discrete or noncommutative space-time coordinates can be found, for example, in Ref. [18] and references therein.
That's it! No specifics taken from the work cited. Nowhere does Lev make use of details from these papers; he spends the rest of his article working up "an approach where quantum theory is based on Galois fields." Footnote 18 reads in full,
Yu.N. Babaev, Gravitational field in discrete compact space, Dirac monopole and the nature of gravitational forces, preprint, Inst. Nucl. Res. Acad. Sci. USSR 0481 (1986); D. McGoveran and H.P. Noyes, Foundations of a Discrete Physics, SLAC-PUB-4526 (1989); S. Majid and H. Ruegg, Phys. Lett. B334, 348 (1994); J. Lukierski, H. Ruegg and W.J. Zakrzewski, Annals of Phys., 243 90 (1995); S. Doplicher, K. Fredenhagen and J. Roberts, Comm. Math. Phys. 172, 187 (1995); L. Susskind, hep-th/0101029; M. R. Douglas and N.A. Nekrasov, Rev. Mod. Phys., 73 977 (2001); G. Amelino-Camelia, Phys. Lett. B528, 181 (2002); G. Bogdanoff and I. Bogdanoff, Annals of Phys., 296, 90 (2002).
Other people are probably better qualified than I to judge whether these papers are in fact the good survey of the field Lev claims them to be. In passing, I note that section 1.2 of Lev's paper expresses a sentiment explicitly based upon Kronecker's famous line, "God made the integers; all the rest is the work of Man." Lev's attitude is, in my estimation, somewhere between philosophically naïve and wildly off-base, but that's only tangential to the issue at hand.
On to the second paper, "Topological field theory of the initial singularity of space-time." This one has two citations, both by Vladimir Dzhunushaliev of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The more recent, "5D Kaluza-Klein gravity: Singularuty and freezing of 5th dimension" (gr-qc/0508046, Dzhunushaliev and Myrzakulov) has no citations. Again, I copy the paragraph which makes the citation:
Thus we can say that the analysis of the classical dynamic of the metric signature for the super-thin and super-long gravitational flux tube shows that there is a region where this quantity changes too much quickly from the quantum gravity viewpoint. It leads to the fact that some pure quantum gravity effects have to happen in order to avoid such variation of the metric signature. We do not consider the mechanism of these effects but the authors point of view is that such mechanism can not be based on any field-theoretical consideration. This pure quantum freezing of extra dimension is like to a trigger which has only two states: in one state the dynamic of G55 is switched on in another one is switched off. One can say that such quantum dynamic which can be realized only in the Planck region is a non-differentiable dynamic. The examples of such hypothesized non-differentiable dynamic can be above-mentioned freezing of extra dimensions, the change of metric signature and may be other phenomena [3], [4].
The Bogdanoff paper is footnote 3. Note that once again the citing article makes no real use of the Bogdanoff "results".
Dzhunushaliev's 2004 paper "Pure quantum freezing of the 5th dimension" (Int. J. Mod. Phys. D14: 1293, gr-qc/0409060) has been cited twice, both times by O. B. Zaslavskii. Because I'm a nice fellow, I'll provide the critical text once again.
Thus the analysis of the classical dynamic of the metric signature for the super thin and super long gravitational flux tube shows that there is a region where this quantity changes too quickly from the quantum gravity viewpoint. This leads to the fact that some pure quantum gravity effects have to happen in order to avoid such a variation of the metric signature. We do not consider the mechanism of these effects but the author's point of view is that such mechanism can not be based on any fieldtheoretical consideration. This pure quantum freezing of the extra dimension is similar to a trigger which has only two states: in one state the dynamic of G55 is switched on, and in another is switched off. Such a quantum dynamic, which can be realized only in the Planck region, is a non-differentiable dynamic. Examples of such a hypothesized non-differentiable dynamic are the above mentioned freezing of the extra dimensions, the change of the metric signature, or other phenomena [3], [4].
Sound familiar?
In all cases, the Bogdanoff papers are cited en passant, with no more notice given than a basic acknowledgment of their existence. This little exercise is Original Research, of course, but I find it illuminating.
Cordially, Anville 00:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Age

How old are they ? Have they really been TV presenters for a "few decades", which must be more than two ? -- Beardo 08:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

They are born in 1948 and began their TV shows in 1978. They almost completely stopped in the 90's (because they were busy trying to do physics...) and came back in 2002. Alain Riazuelo 13:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Caption

The picture caption is very long. Is there the need for the detail about the big bang in this article? --Robdurbar 18:05, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Some sockpuppets complained about some possible errors in the previous caption (I do not remember which). In order to insure that they would not complain anymore I added a bigger and more detailed caption. With the present caption, there is at least something interesting in the article. Also, if you compare the caption with the brothers' claims, you easily see that they do not really know what they are talking about. Alain Riazuelo 16:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Found via Lexis-Nexis

The following comes from the 1 November 2004 Lire, p. 107 No. 330, by Jean Audouze: [10]

Contrairement à leurs affirmations, Igor et Grichka Bogdanov ne sont pas les premiers à proposer un modèle d'Univers décrivant ce qui aurait pu exister avant le Big Bang. C'est l'un des principaux sujets de recherche des physiciens et des astrophysiciens ces dix dernières années. Ainsi les travaux des Américains Neil Turok, de l'université de Cambridge, et Paul Steinhardt, de Princeton, qui proposent un scénario assimilant notre Univers à une "brane", sorte de lamelle flottant près d'autres branes, dans un espace de dimensions supérieures à celui que nous connaissons. Les Bogdanov n'évoquent pas les dernières missions visant à collecter des informations sur les événements qui ont suivi le Big Bang. Ils citent à tort et à travers le programme Wmap américain, sans en décrire le fonctionnement. Par contre, ils oublient la mission Planck-Surveyor, indispensable pour détecter les signes des mini-irrégularités du rayonnement qui remplit l'Univers. Ce qui permettra de vérifier les hypothèses de Turok et Steinhardt. Surtout, les Bogdanov n'ont pas inventé les scénarios faisant intervenir un nombre de dimensions supérieures à quatre. Comme s'ils voulaient escamoter les débats qui agitent les astrophysiciens. Il est piquant que les jumeaux tentent si maladroitement de s'attaquer à la théorie des cordes — où l'on substitue à un modèle de particules élémentaires un système de filaments très fins. Tels deux paons, ils publient, en fin d'ouvrage, les félicitations de scientifiques reconnus. David Fossé, dans la revue Ciel et Espace d'octobre, montre que ces citations, manipulées, constituaient, dans leur intégralité, des critiques sévères sur les textes Bogdanov. Pour faire le point sur le cosmos, mieux vaut suivre les cours de Gabriele Veneziano, professeur au Collège de France, ou se procurer les actes des conférences consacrées à la théorie des cordes.

I particularly like the characterization of the brothers as "two peacocks".

Oh, and this one is short and sweet. It comes from a review in Le Télégramme (8 October 2004), in which Samuel Uguen has some kind words for the Griffons la science educational festival. He starts by saying, "Le goût de la science doit s'acquérir très jeune avant que les chiffres, les formules ou les frères Bogdanov viennent pervertir tout cela." This translates as "The taste for science must be acquired very young, before figures, formulas or the Bogdanov brothers come to pervert it." Funny, funny stuff!

Anville 16:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

CQG redux

I am curious: will the puppet theatre ever get tired of rewriting the CQG statement? The version we quote which they say can't be verified was, in fact, quoted by the New York Times, meaning that it's as verifiable as any damn thing in the Wikipedia. I also wonder which of these users are sockpuppets and which are meatpuppets:

Whew. Anville 22:48, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, and Sophie, who edited as User:213.237.21.6 and later as User:XAL and was accordingly zapped by the ArbCom, came back as User:213.237.21.242. Golly. Anville 23:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

It is not because a false information is quoted in a newspaper that it suddenly turns into a real one.The New York Times quoted the CQG email on the only basis of its publication,a few days earlyer, on John Baez website.Is it a good reason to qualify it as a good and sound source?Certainely not.The only good,verifiable and sound source is the one that was directly published by CQG's editorial board on the Physics Astronomy and Mathematics bulletin. Zoohar et al.
It's not the Wikipedia's job to "explain" how statements got past the New York Times's fact checkers. Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning. . . and in these parts, a verifiable source cannot be second-guessed with original research.
Your use of "et al." is deeply amusing. Do the vandals contradict themselves? Very well, they contradict themselves. They are large: they contain multitudes!
The more I deal with this tripe, the more I reflect upon how totally the world of science has moved past it. The only ripple l'affaire Bogdanoff has left is a two-word catchphrase for the flakiness of the peer review system, a system which just about everybody acknowledges needs fixing to some extent. You know what it means when the only place this battle is being fought is in a Wikipedia article? Do you think this scam will ever make the New York Times again? In the kindest possible way, I urge the puppet gallery to wake up and get on with their lives. This behavior is beyond disruptive: it's just sad. Anville 17:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

To do

  1. Trace the three "thesis reports" to their source and provide proper footnotes, URLs, etc. Ensure that they have been correctly translated.
  2. Take care of the remaining "citation needed" tag. (None of the news media accessible via Google or Lexis-Nexis has any updates on this; the best source is still Baez's website.)
  3. Incorporate a bit more from the Ciel et Espace article into the discussion of Avant le Big Bang (which, as we all know, should really have been titled Avant l'Affreuse Kablooie Spatiale).
  4. Include Urs Schreiber's "very accurate" summary, or an executive summary thereof. We might as well discuss a little physics while we're here, no?
  5. Someday, remove the semiprotection and see if the puppet gallery comes back.
  6. Et puis, qui veut traduire cet article en français? On trouve l'article Polémique autour des travaux des frères Bogdanov étonnamment plus pauvre que notre essai ici. Je peux vous donner quelque chose en franglais, mais ça, ce n'est pas la chose la plus désirable.

Anville 16:07, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, less than a day after Freakofnurture unprotected the article, a sockpuppet came along to muck it. They obviously haven't gone away yet. . . . Anville 14:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Trying to track those thesis reports to their original lair is a real pain. The only website where anyone claimed they existed is this location at CERN, but those have been deleted, purportedly because they had been "doctored" by the Bogdanovs. CatharineV, one of the partisans banned by the ArbCom, has excerpts from these reports here, but, er. . . . WP:RS and all that.

  • Here we see quotations from Porrati, Jackiw and Verbaarchot [sic] added by Igor Bogdanov himself, without a supporting URL. (Here, a few days earlier, is where Kounnas comes in.)

Sigh. Exegesis always starts out so much fun and then decays into tedium. Anville 20:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The statement about Ciel et Espace getting sued was added by YBM, here. This edit summary implies that the French media have covered the legal dispute to some extent, but I haven't been able to find any specifics. Anville 19:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

While there's a todo list around, there are a couple of paragraphs I had trouble with, #3 and #4 of 'Media involvement'. Para-three contains various direct quotes that don't appear in the cited post, and has the word "interesting" was translated as "important" - is that wikt:important or fr:wikt:important? Para-four has "It's certainly possible that you have some new worthwhile results on quantum groups", was translated as "It is completely certain that you have obtained new worthwhile results on quantum groups", a nonsense English-English translation, when the cite (secondary report, not the book) provides French - in questions of translation accuracy it's surely manditory to provide the exact wording, in both languages. --zippedmartin 08:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Finally, a reply from a voice that's not inside my own head! (-; Now that you've raised the point, I was able to find the original source for the latter part of that paragraph. According to Fossé's Ciel et Espace article, Woit's original phrase "It's certainly possible that you have some new worthwhile results on quantum groups" was translated as "Il est tout à fait certain que vous avez obtenu des résultats nouveaux et utiles dans les groupes quantiques" (bold emphasis mine). Later in the article, Majid is quoted as calling the French version of his thesis report "une traduction non autorisée et en partie inventée par les Bogdanov"; Fossé's phrasing at the bottom of page 55 indicates (pretty strongly to me, anyway) that the English word interesting was translated as the French word important.
That paragraph certainly needs cleanup and at least one more footnote, I agree. Anville 18:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
OK, see how those paragraphs read now. I think my latest revision represents a small improvement. Anville 18:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
By this point, I am quite pessimistic about getting reliable sources for either of the two "citations needed" tags. How many people (I said people, not sockpuppets) would object to clipping both of those statements and moving them over here to Talk pending better information? The thesis reports are mildly pro-Bog, while the statement about the Ciel et Espace lawsuit is I guess anti-Bog. Anville 21:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Those paras are less jarring now, and read better. On the two remaining citeneeded tags, do I understand right in that they come from Bogdanov reports? In which case, I think the general citing-questionable-reports rule applies. Rather than writing The last words of Julius Caesar were 'Et tu Brute?' [1] and citing the Shakespeare play, which implies the editor believes Shakey did his research, you can write The last words of Julius Caesar in Shakespeare's play were 'Et tu Brute?' [1] so the reader has an inline-prose option of making a judgement for themselves. What the thesis reports say seems important, as for that matter, is how the Bogdanovs represent them.
A separate issue, as Igor Bogdanov and Grichka Bogdanov seems to currently redirect here (probably useful from an organisation perspective, though they must count as 'notable'), it seems from what is said above that a bio section would be useful. Bit hard to see where they're coming from at the moment. --zippedmartin 23:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Those are good suggestions. The first "citation needed" tag concerns the thesis reports, for which the only source are the B. brothers themselves. (They were probably posted to sci.physics.research at some point. Aha! See, e.g., here.) I stuck the second "citation needed" tag on a statement which had been inserted, originally, by an anti-B. user — if I read the history right, he entered the debate to counter the B. boosters and then didn't follow the "don't feed the trolls" wisdom of Internet philosophy.
On your second point, we could at least flesh out the "origin of the controversy" section with more background material. One problem is that the Brothers B. have much bigger exposure in French-language media; on Planet Anglophone, they're really only notable in connection with this controversy. (Were a separate article on I. and G. created, I could see it posted quickly to AfD, with the consensus being "Merge to Bogdanov Affair".) One could begin, I suppose, by translating chunks from Igor et Grishka Bogdanoff over on the French Wikipédia. Anville 01:21, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Post from fr.sci.physique looks citable to me (with caveats), though I'm beginning to think that some serious rearranging is needed. On the biog subject, I see the sense in keeping all in one article (here), but think more than the current two lines is needed to get any idea of the 'characters' involved. At the moment motivations and some events are pretty murky - partly because they *are* of course. However, I just read the NYT article, and it seems to flow better, and is a much more accessible - perhaps because a narrative news-style is better suited to this kind of topic than structured encyclopedise. Expecting a cohesive article given its history though, is I guess not being fair enough to editors involved. --zippedmartin 00:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I think I agree with you on the fr.sci.physique post; we should be able to cook up some phrasing along the lines of your Et tu, Brute example to express all the necessary caveats. Maybe we could say something like, "The thesis reports, which the Bogdanovs themselves have quoted to support their claims of good intentions, etc." After re-reading the NYT piece, I second you on that point, too. (The Chronicle of Higher Education article may also be useful in this regard.)
On a related note, how much do you think needs to be fixed to address the WP:LIVING tag at the top of this Talk page? Anville 15:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry for the response delay, was on holiday. Additions look good to me, I might try and poke the wording a bit if I get inspired. On the citations front for the current Living Goalposts, I'd say the ball is firmly in the back of the net - until sueage panic kicks again at any rate. References section is very nicely presented too (though darn < ref /> scatterage everywhere is ugly when you hit edit...) --zippedmartin 22:12, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
No worries! I strongly doubt this is the most time-critical piece of writing out here in Wiki-land. As for the wording, poke all you'd like. I hope you had a pleasant holiday. Anville 22:25, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

CQG, encore une fois

Ahem. To all the anon IPs/sockpuppets/meatpuppets complaining about the CQG e-mail, note that we don't get it from Baez's website, but from Greg Kuperberg via sci.physics.research. I note that none of them has complained about the referee reports for Classical and Quantum Gravity, the Czechoslovak Journal of Physics and the Chinese Journal of Physics which do come from Baez's website — hmmm, the plot thickens. Furthermore, each of these acts of sockpuppet theater remove thoroughly cited material from multiple mainstream, well-regarded news organizations. This is considered vandalism. Anville 19:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Progress!

It appears we have moved beyond the CQG-related sockpuppetry into a brave new world of théâtre de faux-nez! Now the issue is over "censored web sites". In my view, the External Links guideline would rule these out even if they weren't being pushed by sockpuppets, but that's a debate for a different day. In the meantime, here is the dramatis personae so far:

Be seeing you. Anville 18:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

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