Bogdanov affair: Difference between revisions

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

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

This question immediately attracted worldwide attention, both in the physics community and in the international popular press. Following Niedermaier, most of the participants to the Usenet thread of discussion created by Baez made assumptions that the work was a deliberate hoax in the style of Sokal, to which the Bogdanov brothers have continued to make vehement rebuttals. Niedermaier issued a private and public apology to the Bogdanovs on 24 October 2002 for assuming from the outset that their work was a deliberate hoax (he has not endorsed the validity or merit of the work in question).

In the aftermath of the hoax turmoil, 2 members of Editorial Board of the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity issued by email a statement published on November 1st by the mathematician Greg Kupperberg whereby they regret the publication of the paper which "made it through the review process even though, in retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal." However, the journal didn't withdraw the article. "Rather, [it] publishes refereed Comments and Replies by readers and authors as a means to comment on and correct mistakes in published material."

However, the opinion expressed by the editors in this emall appears to be in contradiction with the analysis of the two referees appointed by the journal to judge the scientific merit of the bogdanoff paper which was accepted after 7 months of deep analysis by the experts and 3 revisions Reports :

« QUALITY ASSESSMENT: Q2, Sound, original and of interest. With revisions I expect the paper to be suitable for publication. The author's make the interesting observation that, in the limit of infinite temperature, a field theory is reduced to a topological field theory which may be a suitable description of the initial phase of the universe. (...) I can accept that in the limit of infinite temperature, contact can be made with a topological phase of some field theory (the type of field theory needs to be elaborated on however). The crucial question, however, is how does the initial topological phase break down to a universe we see today.""

The Bogdanovs' work has encompassed quantum groups, KMS theory, and topological field theory, culimating in a proposition of a theory for describing what occurred before the Big Bang. Whilst the general public cannot be expected to have the expertise to evaluate the specialised technical claims of either side in this dispute, currently nearly all physicists who have published on web forums and news://sci.physics.research are of the opinion, that the Bogdanoff paper is a hoax, "gibberish", or at best, a piece of sloppy work plagued by errors, while only a few other theoretical physicists currently defend the Bogdanoff theory.

On the other hand, and before this widespread "hoax" discussion, the technical reports on their thesis and the journal referees' reports analysed favorably their work and insisted on the interest and the originality of the Bogdanoff theory.

An indication of the impact that these theories may have on theoretical physics can be inferred by the references made to them in subsequent papers by other theoretical physicists (5 references today on spires and arXiv, which is a comparatively above the average number since, as the mathematician Steve Carlip pointed out the 7 Nov 2002 concerning published papers in "Physics bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax? " Roughly 59% have fewer _ than five citations. (This probably underestimates papers' impact, _ though -- see below.) The median number of citations is 2.3." ).

Meanwhile, the Bogdanovs continue to vigorously defend their work as genuine and to stand behind their original claims. The general topic of "before the Big Bang" is a complicated and technical field, and their work purports to present forward-looking theories.

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

External links

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