6.2 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bogdanov affair | 5/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_affair | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:29:43.001702+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Claims of pseudonymous activity === One episode after the heyday of the affair involved the participation of an unidentified "Professor Yang". Using an e-mail address at the domain th-phys.edu.hk, an individual publishing under this name wrote to a number of individuals and on the Internet to defend the Bogdanov papers. This individual wrote to physicists John Baez, Jacques Distler and Peter Woit; to The New York Times journalist Dennis Overbye; and on numerous physics blogs and forums, signing his name "Professor L. Yang—Theoretical Physics Laboratory, International Institute of Mathematical Physics—HKU/Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong." It is the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology which is located in Clear Water Bay, not Hong Kong University (HKU), whose main campus is located in the Mid-Levels of Hong Kong Island. The Bogdanovs have claimed that the "domain name 'th-phys.edu.hk' was owned by Hong Kong University." This was not confirmed officially by HKU and no Prof. Yang existed on the roster of the HKU physics department; nor did the university have an "International Institute of Mathematical Physics". Suspicions were consequently raised that Professor L. Yang was actually a pseudonym of the Bogdanovs. However, Igor Bogdanov has maintained that Professor Yang is a real mathematical physicist with expertise in KMS theory, a friend of his, and that he was posting anonymously from Igor's apartment.
=== Rayons X and Avant Le Big Bang ===
In 2002, the Bogdanovs launched a new weekly TV show Rayons X (X Rays) on French public channel France 2. In August 2004, they presented a 90-minute special cosmology program in which they introduced their theory among other cosmological scenarios. The French mainstream media, in both the press and on the Internet, covered the renewed controversy to some extent; media outlets that reported upon it include Acrimed and Ciel et Espace.
In 2004, the Bogdanovs published a commercially successful popular science book, Avant Le Big Bang (Before the Big Bang), based on a simplified version of their theses, where they also presented their point of view about the affair. Both the book and the Bogdanovs' television shows have been criticized for elementary scientific and mathematical inaccuracies. Critics cite examples from Avant Le Big Bang including a statement that the "golden number" φ (phi) is transcendental, an assumption that the limit of a decreasing sequence is always zero, and that the expansion of the Universe implies that the planets of the Solar System have grown farther apart. In October 2004, a journalist from Ciel et Espace interviewed Shahn Majid of Queen Mary, University of London about his report on Grichka Bogdanov's thesis. Majid said that the French version of his report on Grichka's thesis was "an unauthorized translation partially invented by the Bogdanovs." In one sentence, the English word "interesting" was translated as the French "important". A "draft [mathematical] construction" became "la première construction [mathématique]" ("the first [mathematical] construction"). Elsewhere, an added word demonstrated, according to Majid, that "Bogdanov does not understand his own draft results." Majid also described more than ten other modifications of meaning, each one biased towards "surestimation outrancière"—"outrageous over-estimation". Majid said that his original report described a "very weak" student who nevertheless demonstrated "an impressive amount of determination to obtain a doctorate." Later, Majid claimed in a Usenet post that, in an addendum to Avant Le Big Bang, Grichka intentionally misquoted Majid's opinion on the way this interview had been transcribed.
Additionally, in the same addendum, a critical analysis of their work made by Urs Schreiber, and affirmed by the Bogdanovs as "very accurate", was included with the exception of the concluding remark "Just to make sure: I do not think that any of the above is valid reasoning", thus inverting the meaning from criticism into ostensible support. Moreover, a comment by physicist Peter Woit written as, "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" ("It is completely certain that you have obtained new and useful results on quantum groups") and published by the Bogdanovs in the addendum of their book.
=== Disputes on French and English Wikipedias === At the beginning of 2004, Igor Bogdanov began to post on French Usenet physics groups and Internet forums, continuing the pattern of behavior seen on sci.physics.research. A controversy began on the French Wikipedia when Igor Bogdanov and his supporters began to edit that encyclopedia's article on the brothers, prompting the creation of a new article dedicated to the debate (Polémique autour des travaux des frères Bogdanov—"Debate surrounding the work of the Bogdanov brothers"). The dispute then spread to the English Wikipedia. In November 2005, this led the Arbitration Committee, a dispute resolution panel that acts as the project's court of last resort, to ban anyone deemed to be a participant in the external dispute from editing the English Wikipedia's article on the Bogdanov Affair. A number of English Wikipedia users, including Igor Bogdanov himself, were explicitly named in this ban. In 2006, Baez wrote on his website that for some time the Bogdanovs and "a large crowd of sock puppets" had been attempting to rewrite the English Wikipedia article on the controversy "to make it less embarrassing to them". "Nobody seems to be fooled", he added.
=== Lawsuits === In December 2004, the Bogdanovs sued Ciel et Espace for defamation over the publication of a critical article entitled "The Mystification of the Bogdanovs". In September 2006, the case was dismissed after the Bogdanovs missed court deadlines; they were ordered to pay 2,500 euros to the magazine's publisher to cover its legal costs. There was never a substantive ruling on whether the Bogdanovs had been defamed.