Talk:Bogdanov affair/Archive 3

message: Laurence67, you have violated the 3 revert rule by reverting four times in just a few hours. I'll assume it was a mistake if you stop reverting right now. One more and you'll be blocked. Please read the rule again. --Bishonen | talk 15:37, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ??? I don't understand: I've reverted 2 times today: one time at 12:20 (IP 195.186.234.183: I hadn't noticed I wasn't logged) and a second time at 12:39 (Laurence67)... It's easy to verify ! Between these both contributions I have been reverted by YBM, 5 minutes after my first one... --Laurence67 16:52, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're absolutely right, I apologize. I got confused between your IP, 195.186.234.183, and Igor's  "secondary" IP 194.206.212.1. This was entirely my fault, nobody else's, I'm sorry. At the same time, I note with some, well, tiredness, that it would make all our lives easier if Igor/Grischka would consent to use the account they've registered, User:Bogdanov. --Bishonen | talk 17:13, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem! --Laurence67 17:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  <del>Laurence67's 3RR violation</del> 

message: :About this DNS issue :
: th-phys.edu.hk has been registred the 24 of November 2003 and expired on the 4 of Decembre 2004 at HKDNR (the registrar in charge of most .hk subdomains :
   Registrant:
   Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
   Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong
   China
   
   Domain Name: TH-PHYS.EDU.HK
   
   Record last updated on 2005-01-03
   Record created on 2003-11-24
   Record expired on 2004-12-04
(this is the real HKUST street adresse, the phone number is fake)
:The "International Institute of Mathematical Physics" (one of your ghost institutes) have been hosted on http://th-phys.edu.hk/ for at least a year, you have used personnaly adresses ending on th-phys.edu.hk to post authenticated e-mails
:You "friend" Yang (who posted from Paris, especially from you own home) pretended (and here) on Usenet to be a member of HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science of Technoloty), he wrote to Dennis Overbye of the New York Times pretending to be a member of HKU (Hong Kong University)
:You answered to David Fossé of the french magazine "Ciel & Espace" to have the center of your institute in Hong Kong
:You bet with me that I would be unable to prove that you had no link with Hong Kong University (you admitted then to have lost your bet, I'm still waiting for the Feynman books anyway)
:Now the results of some very basic inquiries :
:* John Baez went once in Hong Kong for a workshop, he checked about IIMP and Pr. Yang... who happened to be inexistant
:* I wrote to HKU and HKUST : none of them, neither their scientific departements nor their computer services never heard of such registration, they are currently driving a enquiry with HKDNR
: --YBM 15:41, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: N.B. Igor is now posting from a 9TELECOM IP address, just like LLL did yesterday. Perhaps I were wrong in believing LLL was a indirect sock puppet. --YBM 15:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: At the same time you tried to link you activities to the University of Paris 4 (Sorbonne !), one of the more prestigious in Paris, again by faking the DNS records (for maths-phys.edu.bs, since univ-***.fr is not that easy to trick), is it again a friend of yours who did the fraud ? Anyway you didn't have time to use it. --YBM 15:56, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  About the fake DNS issue 

message: Since it is possible that some of the readers of this page may be interested in knowing a cosmologist's point of view about the Bogdanoff stuff, maybe my humble contribution could be useful. Those interested in my records may find them here.
Stating that the Bogdanoff work has to do with (scientific) cosmology is a bit like stating that the Bible also has. The Bogdanoff do talk about the early universe, but lack more or less all the basis that should be required for their "work" to be considered in the field of science. I shall give below a number of example which  I hope will show pretty clearly their ignorance about physics in general. In order that everybody can judge what I say, I will mostly stick to documents written by the Bogdanoff brothers that are freely available. i.e. Grishka's and Igor's PhD manuscripts (for some reason, Igor's manuscript does not seem to be availbe from French National Reaserch Agency (CNRS) PhD server, so the link points to my copy of it). Igor's manuscript includes four of the six papers written by him and/or his brother. The two missing one are essentially identical to some of those included. The rest is written in French. The Classical and Quantum Gravity (CQG) article, or in fact a preprint version of it is starts at page 56 of Igor's thesis.
* The first point I would like to raise is that the Bogdanoff brothers do not know anything about cosmology. The begining of the CQG article is very clear about that. It says, in its first sentence One of the limits of the standard space-time model remains its inability to provide a description of the singular origin of space-time. So they take for granted that the universe emerged from a space-time singularity. At present, this question is unanswered, and it is not even clear that it will be possible to address it one day. One of the reason is that in order to explain the homogeneity and isotropy of the universe on the largest observable scales, one has to call upon some process involving some yet undetermined new physical processes, the presently most popular of which being cosmic inflation, which predicts that the "initial state" of the universe (understand here the state of the universe at the beginning of inflation) has been washed away by the inflationary process. So, if these ideas are true, there is just no hope to explore the preinflationary era of the universe. Morevover, there is nothing that guarantees that the preinflationary era started from a singularity. For example, in the spirit of what is called chaotic inflation, the universe might well be an eternal "self-reproducing" thing with inflationary eras starting every time in various distant regions. The pre Big Bang model by G. Veneziano or the ekpyrotic universe are other (less popular) models where there is not initial singularity of space-time. All these models are more or less compatible with observations but start from very, very, very different states: chaotic inflation starts from an ever expanding eternal universe, pre Big Bang starts from an empty contracting universe followed by a bounce and the ekpyrotic model is based from brane cosmology. 
* So, not only making the assumption that the universe started from an initial singularity is very strange (the authors should at least have stated that it was an as yet untestable hypothesis), but also there is no discussion about the observability of their "model". Actually, it is very hard to imagine that anything from Planck era could be observable today (see below), so that from very general grounds, it is very difficult to consider their work as being part of science.
* Now, if one wants to enter into the details, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that in fact the Bogdanoff know almost nothing in physics except some of the jargon. But mastering the jargon does not mean having an understanding of the underlying concepts.
:# For example, the motivation for considering an initial singularity of space-time comes from a serious misunderstanding of the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems which they obviously think (this is explicitely stated on Sec. 5.2 p. 69 of Grichka's thesis)  proves that the universe emerged from a singularity. Actually, these theorems state under which conditions the universe might have emerged form a singularity, and there is absolutely nothing which guarantees that all these hypotheses are valid in the early universe. All the above mentioned models violate at least one of the hypothesis of these theorems (namely, the strong energy condition), so that it is completely irrelevant to mention the Hawking Penrose theorems when studying the early universe.
:#Actually it is of no use to deal with sophisticated stuff to realize the Bogdanoff's ignorance. The most enlightening part of their "work" is I think Grichka's thesis p. 47 and 48, at the beginning of chapter 4 (note that the PDF page number does not correspond to the printed page number, I mention the printed page numbers here, which correspond to pages 59 and 60 of the PDF). So, below Conjecture 4.1.2 is written a number of sentences whose aim is to justify that the universe is in thermal equilibrium at the Planck era. All the material here is merely a copy followed by a stupid translation of a book written by Peter Coles and Francesco Lucchin. One of the authors has allowed me to put online a copy of the corresponding pages,  so I will put them online in the next days so that everybody can compare Grichka's thesis and this part of the book. The point here is not plagiarism issue, of course, but to show at what extent the Bogdanoff could copy a meaningful thing but without understanding it, so that in the end, the results is completely meaningless. So, they begin by their equation (4.1), which is a copy of part of equation (7.1.4) of Coles and Lucchin (CL) book. Is it really the same ? No. The Bogdanoff equation is \rho (T) = g^*(T) \frac{\sigma T^4}{2}, where CL's is \rho (T) c^2 = g^*(T) \frac{\sigma_r T^4}{2}. CL follow the unusual convention to note the mass density instead of the energy density with \rho, hence their extra factor c^2. But this formula, which gives the energy density of a radiation fluid as a function of the temperature involves the radiation constant, which CL notes \sigma_r, but the Bogdanoff used something (which they do not define) they note \sigma. The standard thing that is noted \sigma is not the radiation constant, but the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, which differs from the former by a factor c / 4... Now, the interesting thing lies in the next equation (4.2), where the Bogdanoff now give the particle number density of a radiation gas as a function of temperature. This is equation (7.1.5) in CL. It reads n_B = \frac{4}{3} n_F = \frac{\zeta(3)}{\pi^2} \left(\frac{k_B T}{\hbar c} \right)^3. The expression in fact depends wether the particles one considers follow the Fermi-Dirac statistics or the Bose-Einstein statistics. This is why the n_B and n_F (respectively for bosons and fermions) appear. In their equation (4.2), the Bogdanoff use n_G, which is logical since they deal with a graviton gas. Now, the point obviously missed by the Bogdanoff is that in the right handside of the equation, a k_B appears, but the subscript B has nothing to do with Bose-Einstein or bosons! It just stands for Boltzmann, since k_B is the Boltzmann constant. Since after equation (4.2) they always note k_G instead of k_B, it is pretty clear that they had not recognized the Boltzmann constant and more generally that they had absolutely no idea of what they were copying (it is very hard to imagine that any physicist could make such a mistake).
:#Of course, this is not the end of the story, because there are actually many, many terms which have been incorrectly translated by the Bogdanoff, which also show without doubt that they did not know the things they were writing. For example, they perform a litteral translation of number density into nombre densité. But this term does not exist in French! (the term is just densité or densité de particules if any confusion either with mass density or with energy density can arise). Page 48, they also make the funny litteral translation of cross section into section droite. The term section droite exists in French, but it is used in geomtry, not in physics (see the cross section disambiguation page). So, again, it is unthinkable that any physicist could make such a confusion and/or and incorrect translation. Even more unthinkable is the confusion the Bogdanoff made a bit further page 48. They state Ce temps doit être comparé avec le taux d'expansion \tau_h = \frac{a}{\dot a}. Here, they just follow CL book, which compare the collision time (noted \tau_{\rm coll}) with the expansion timescale (i.e., the Hubble time, the inverse of the Hubble constant, noted \tau_H) in order to check whether it is possible that thermal equilibrium can be achieved. The point here is that expansion rate (= the Hubble constant) is translated in French as taux d'expansion. The x of taux is not pronounced, so that taux and the Greek letter \tau are pronounced exactly the same. So this led them to make the confusion between the expansion rate (taux d'expansion) and what is noted \tau_H, which corresponds to the expansion timescale, that is the inverse of the former. Actually, this expression is more often stated using collision rate \Gamma and expansion rate H, so that one has \Gamma \gg H as a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for thermal equilibrium. Page 15 of Igor's thesis, it is \frac{\Gamma}{H} \ll 1, which is (incorrectly) stated. This is also the case on page 109 and 122. But strangely it is the opposite correct \frac{\Gamma}{H} \gg 1 which appears on page 79... I have no time to list of the errors that appear on pages 47-48, their total number is above 20.
:#Actually, such a game could continue for long. For example, in Grichka's thesis, what is below Conjecture 7.1.2 is just a copy of this article, page 21-22 (whose reference is given in the thesis, so that it is, again, not a plagiarism issue here). Again, it is interesting to note that none of the technical terms are translated. Both worldsheet and target space appear untranslated in the thesis. Although this is not an uncommon practice in French, the fact that the sentence so that the winding modes in Y are responsible for the elimination of flat connections with non trivial holonomy is missing is much more annoying, since it is important in this context. Also, the discussion page 67-68 of Grichka's thesis is a copy of a paper by Teyssandier. It is interesting to note that the (correct) expression (60) of Teyssandier's article was incorrectly copied by the Bogdanoff on Eq. (5.7) (a copy of part of Teyssandier's article can be found here for those who do not have an online access to the journal). I had asked Igor some time ago whether he could confirm the exactness of his equation (5.7), and he had replied that it was... It can also be noted that Grichka's conjecture 5.1.4 is completely meaningless. It says that the linearized approximation of the Schwarzschild metric can be considered as a local exact solution of some extended gravity theory they are considering. This is beyond stupidity as there are plenty of gravitational effects which are routinely measured and that would not exist is the "linearized approximation of the Schwarzschild matric" existed in Nature. In particular, there would be no relativistic precession of planets perihelion...
:#More generally the number of incorrect statements that can be found in the theses is incredible. As an example, on can mention the statement that the Dirac operator is a supergravity hamiltonian (G's thesis, p. 49, 54, I's thesis, p. 34, 60, 142). One can also mention that the terms Lagrangian and action, are used improperly instead of Lagrangian density. NOTE ADDED: this confusion is not uncommon in the literature. However, this is a good example of sloppy notation that can be found almost everywhere in their work. There is even a funny densité d'action (action density) which appears in Grichka's thesis (p. 96 and 97). Needless to say, this term does not exist. NOTE ADDED: this is wrong, sorry.
* Those who are more interested in gravity and mechanics will probably find interesting to have a look at the paper Topological origin of inertia published in the almost unknown Czechoslowak Journal of Physics (page 133-162 of I's thesis). The very first equation is apparently supposed to give some estimate of the potential energy of a given point in the universe. Actually, this concept is not defined in general relativity and in Newtonian mechanics it diverges for an infinite universe. So this very first equation is stupid, as is stupid the statement that the origin of inertia is an unsolved problem in physics. Most of the stuff of this article can be skipped till Eq. (34) which makes the stupid claim that the gravitational force between two bodies goes as 1/r. For what is said after, it seems that the total mass of the universe is finite (even if the universe is infinite...). Equation (37), although containing only very basic terms is completely meaningless, as well as Eq. (38) which obviously state that the Gaussian curvature of some surface is a dimensionless number (equal to 1 here, don't ask me why). The presence of the qed at the bottom of page 150 is not understood in this context.
* To come back to their "model", their point is to say that the space-time metric is subject to signature fluctuations. One incredible thing here is that this core concept (signature fluctuation) is never defined in their work. It is mentioned (but not defined) in the introduction and then first appears on page 2, still without definition. It can be noted that there is a huge number of incorrect stuff since the very first chapter of G's thesis. One of them is for example the claim that there is a bijection between a fundamental group of some object and its universal cover (p. 8, above (1.8)). 
* The only part of their work which shows some meaning is their work on quantum groups (chapter 3 of G's thesis). However, no exaggerated importance should be given to this work. Although it shows some knowledge of the subject (which is sufficiently rare with the Bogdanoff to be emphasized), this is a rather trivial corollary of some work by S. Majid. One can easily check that part of this work was put by the Bogdanov on the preprint server here, but that at present it has not been cited once (click on the "CiteBase" link to check). Moreover, there are no connection between chapter 3 of G's thesis and the rest of his work. The only place where the results of chapter 3 are mentioned in the next parts of the thesis is on page 70 where it is stated (bottom of page) that their cocycle bicrossproduct suggests that metric fluctuations are possible... Actually the verb suggérer (to suggest) is used 95 throughout G's thesis, much more often than the verbs to show, to demonstrate, to deduce, etc.
* Among the things which are not done in science but which were done by the Bogdanoff (there are so many...), one can mention the fact that identical articles were submitted (and accepted!) in different journals. It is obvious by comparing the papers published in Chinese Jounal of Physics (pp. 119-132 of I's thesis) and the one published in Annals of Physics (pp. 106-118 of I's thesis). The titles, abstracts are different, as well as the authors (Igor & G for one, Igor alone for the other). Then, only the beginning of the first section differ (just because of some trivial rephrasing), but all what follows is identical, up to the typos in the reference list (in particular in their Ref 18). Actually, one the the tiny difference in the two preprint is that the 24th and last reference has number 25 in one paper and 26 in the other. Needless to say, I have also checked on the published versions of these papers (as well as the Nuovo Cimento paper) which are identical to the two others and their preprints except some trivial rephrasing.
* Something that could also be noted is the distortion between the actual content of their work and the way they present it. In various French popular articles, they present their work as solving the mystery of the origin of the universe. They also claim that they have proved that a mysterious "cosmological code" determines the evolution of the universe from the very beginning. There is also a very large number of nonsensical claims in their popular book "Avant le Big Bang", the most famous of which being the fact that the golden ratio is a transcendental number and that the size of the solar system was sensitive to the expansion of the universe. They claimed this many times.
* They show a systematic tendancy to present their stuff as something important and to claim they have done (much) more in science than what they indeed did. Without being exhaustive (this is just impossible), one can cite this interview where they claim they have redone the analysis of the WMAP data (page 13, right column). It is by the way interesting to note that they claim to have proven that is universe was not flat on the (hypothetical!) basis that the central value of the density of the universe is (according to them!) 1.023 times its critical density with an error bar of 0.02, which is (according to them!) due to the fact that 1.023 - 0.02 = 1.003 > 1. Needless to say, these error bars (published by the WMAP team) are at one sigma, so that whether the central value is 1.02 or 1.023 does not change anything to the facts that present data do not imply that the universe is closed. Just to make sure: it is pretty clear that they did not analyze WMAP data since they ignore what an error bar is. So they lied when claiming the performed the analysis. One can also mention the interesting claim in the same interview that the Poincaré dodecahedral space has the same topology that a 3-sphere (p. 13, in the middle), which again is stupid since the latter if the universal cover of the former.
It should be noted that the use of the Bogdanoff stuff by the scientific community is non existent, which can be easily check with the SPIRES database here. No one should be surprised of this. If one really wants to check the details, it is easy to see that the three papers which cite the Bogdanoff do not use anything they made, but just mention the existence of their papers. 
Actually, stating (as in the present form of the Wikipedia article) that there was a controversy about the value of the Bogdanoff stuff is incorrect. There was never such a controversy, neither in France nor elsewhere (the Bogdanoff already had a bad reputation after a first successful book full of silly errors published in the early 90's). The only open question was (but only at the time the affair started) whether it was a deliberate hoax or just a bad work. The fact that people thought that it was done on purpose reflects nothing but the fact that people considered at some time the bogdanoff as (much) more brilliant than what they actually are. 
The above is alas by no mean exhaustive. As was already stated by Eli Hawkins long ago, It would take up too much space to  enumerate all the mistakes: indeed it is difficult to say where one  error ends and the next begins. This is the most compact and most accurate way to describe their "work". Considering the possibility that any serious scientist might disagree with the above is in my opinion a matter of superstition or religious belief. Everybody is free to check some of these facts with people who work in the field.
Alain Riazuelo 13:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  <snicker>  (no, it's ROTFLOL!!) r b-j 16:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A small journey in the Bogdanoff universe

message: Snowspinner has requested arbitration of the Bogdanov Affair affair, read about it here. Bishonen | talk 23:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Request for arbitration

message: Some days, when I do something really stupid, like run into a wall, drop a knife on my foot, or start an imaginary physics institute, I read and re-read this Web page.  It makes me feel so much better.  How can people, who straight-faced refer to themselves as geniuses, repeatedly do things so silly.  Whatever became of our French PhD in history whose pro-Igor comments were erased by... Igor?
Sure, most people may compare the Bogdanoffs' work to Intelligent Design but, I believe that the Bogdanoffs have proven that Darwin was way off the mark.  Otherwise, how could they have lived into their 50s?
I should note, with some naive pride, that I tried in good faith (way back in Archive1 and Archive2) to resolve this POV issue in an objective manner.  I have been consistently disappointed and disturbed by the childish antics and foolish sock puppets of Igor or, in fairness, perhaps they are just newly found anonymous friends of Igor.  I suggest permanently protecting the article.
--EE Guy 02:26, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I've proposed a variant of that on the arbitration page. --Maru (talk) 03:40, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Har har. Very amusing. --Maru (talk) 03:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  I LOVE THIS 

message: EE Guy spoke about a consensus this morning. He is right because we are not far from it. However, a consensus should be based on an "equilibrium" of the article subject to an agreement by all parties.  This is why  (since this element exists and should not be dissociated from the argumets as a whole) I insert a few lines of the positive report of CQG journal after its negative statement about Bogdanovs work. This is the only way to respect both sides and lead us to a consensus.
: i put in your positive CQG referee report (which needs a source other than you), Igor, almost verbatim along with the Eli Hawkins report.  upon your pointing out the error of which journal he was reviewing for i immediately corrected the journal reference.  i said we can have them both or neither. you took out the Hawkins report, and i took out your CQG report.
:the CQG referee report does not "balance" the CQG editorial repudiation of your paper any more than a lieutenant's order "balances" his general.  the CQG Editorial Board clearly outranks the referees and the board says that the paper should never have been published in their journal.  if you want to include "your" referee, get sources for it and we'll include both "your" referee and Hawkins.
:however, i personally am not inclined to cooperate (or seek consensus) with you in any way, because you continue to create and use sock puppets and you never abide by the rules.  when you are blocked for 3RR, you just edit/revert anyway.  since i refuse to play this dishonest (mis)identification game, when i get blocked with you, i'm out of the picture for 24 hours.  but you cheat and no one should be dealing with you at all until you come clean and stop cheating. r b-j 15:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: New Consensus

message: Dear Mr/Mrs A. de Parme,
after some investigation, it seems that a person named Amélie de Bourbon Parme is a member of an institution belonging to the French Government called the Conseil d'Analyse de la Société. I must confess I do not know what this council is for, neither the reasons which led to the choice of its members. But the institution definitely exists and there is a member, whose present job is "student" (whatever that means) and that bears your name with an extra "Bourbon". This last remark leads me to think that this Amélie de Bourbon Parme might in fact be of royal lineage, with possibly some ancestors crowned as King of France. It is also rumoured that this Amélie de Bourbon Parme has gotten some diploma in history, possibly under the supervision of Luc Ferry (see here, page 4). Interestingly enough, there is another document which tends to indicate that in fact Amélie de Bourbon Parme is a close friend of Igor Bogdanoff. Also, the above mentioned Conseil d'Analyse de la Société is led by Luc Ferry, former Ministery of Education and good friend of the Bogdanoff who wrote an incredible article about the Bogdanoff's book "Avant le Big Bang" (basically he says that he did not understand anything but that he enjoyed reading it). Whether or not all this is a coincidence is left to everyone's appreciation. So, Mr/Mrs A. de Parme, I am tempted to think that hide-and-seek game is not part of the common activities of people of your rank. Therefore, I would appreciate that you identify yourself properly and let us know under which circumstance you seem to be have been led to think that you "have the experience and the expertise to comment on certain aspects of this affair". If you have time, I would also appreciate any comment about my previous post on some scientific aspects of the Bogdanoff's work.
Alain Riazuelo 17:30, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear Alain, the real Amélie de Bourbon-Parme started a PhD thesis in 2001 on "regicide and regicides under the Restoration" at EHESS under the supervision of Philippe Boutry, as can be easily checked on the French national directory of humanities theses. She also seems to have written a book on Louis XVII. David.Monniaux 20:22, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Royal lineage of normal sockpuppet ?

message: I added another quote by Motl.  The current quote takes his blog out of context and, I believe, that my quote puts it back into context.  Also, I re-added the article to the category "Hoaxes."  As I wrote weeks ago, this is not a judgement call about the merit of the Bogdanoffs' work.  It merely recognizes that there would be no Wiki article if there were not the perception of a hoax (whether or not it actually is one).
Ooops... forgot to mention that I added a brief history of the thesis defenses of 1999 and 2002.  I'm sure this will be controversial, but some history and context of these events are crucial in understanding why this reflects on peer review.
--EE Guy 22:48, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Information 

message: To Rbj, YBM and al. If you really pretend to be the defenders of ethic and science, please respect two rules, once for good : (i) stop insults and diffamatory assertions, (ii) stop manipulation of facts and deformation of truth. 
To  all the wiki-readers and contributors : here is the opinion of the prof. Sternheimer, mathematician, the  theses advisor of BB after the death of Prof. Moshe Flato. This opinion has been expressed two weeks after the publication on the web of the diffamatory mail of Mr Niedemaier. 
Letter from Daniel Sternheimer to Arkadius Jadczyk, 5 November 2002 :
Source : Quantum Future Physics
" Dear Ark,
I congratulated [Robert Coquereaux] for being one of the few who have healthy views about this "storm in a teacup". I agree with his statement and conclusion...
In my opinion, [the Bogdanov brothers] genuinely believe in what they are doing. They were "wunderkinds", with an extremely high IQ, but they have a hard time understanding that they are not the "Einstein Bros." and that, in our diversified society, no talent is universal.
Their real talent is in popularization of science: they understand a lot, can even contribute to the scientific advances in interaction with others, but it is very hard for them to write papers in one of the styles accepted by the [scientific] communities. That is their curse, because they have (for unrelated reasons) enemies who want to bar them from popularization using any means, including finding people who (often naively, sometimes because they feel that the twins' style exposes too much the weaknesses of too many works in physics, or a combination of this and more, including following rumors spead) use the imperfections in formulation to disqualify the twins' original ideas instead of looking seriously at these ideas.
On the mathematical side, when they have a vague idea, it is possible with a lot of effort to make them (especially Grichka) write a small precise paper (and even then, in the last moment they may add what they think is a brilliant remark, but which is not so related to the remainder and can be badly formulated). That is what Majid has done, and that is an achievement. You seem to be trying to do the same with your discussion on the web: it is possible, because they have a point, but it is very difficult.
On the physical side, they have read a lot, understand in broad lines a lot, do get from it a somewhat original point of view, can even bring in new ideas, and can (especially Grichka) talk about it in a fascinating manner, at almost any level. That is their talent. Writing is an other thing. Their style is impressionistic.
In mathematics, a precise painting, or a photograph, are required. Sometimes the picture is slightly blurred, but then someone else can come to the same place and correct it -- once the place is discovered. I know of two Fields medallists, among the best, in that category.
In physics, the picture is often, for a mathematician, surrealistic. Some very good mathematical physicists can make it precise, but it requires a lot of effort and a long time. If there is a solid physical intuition behind it, the result can eventually make sense. The Dirac "delta function" is a very good (albeit elementary) example.
Their natural tendency is an impressionistic style, which is the best for popularization of science. You do not look at a picture by Sisley from a distance of 20cm, but from 2m it makes sense and conveys the impression. Then someone else can come and translate that impression in a more conventional style.
The [Bogdanov's] contribution to science can be looked at in the same manner. That is why they impress so many good physicists with their ideas and points of view. But one should not pick on the impreciseness of some details, even if the devil is there. Rather, one should try to understand what they mean and write it in a more conventional way. Many good scientists (even mathematicians) proceed in this way, like a sculptor: first a rough "ébauche", then a more precise rendering, and usually (but not always, especially in modern art) a fantastic masterpiece.
Unless someone else takes a lot of time with them, they stop at the first stage, what for others is an ébauche. Why not consider that as a new form of modern division of research work? Others should be inspired from what can be understood from the twins' writings and (especially) orally expressed ideas, and bring that into a more conventional form. Picking on what for a humanities thesis is a misplaced comma or rather abundant misspellings, does not contribute to the progress of science. Getting new ideas out of that does.
As to the formal (Ph.D.) issue, my role was more that of a Journal Editor. I understand the general ideas underlying their works. I find them a valid attempt towards a progress in science, even if I am not convinced that it is THE solution, assuming there is one.
The mathematical part of Grichka's thesis in itself is worth the rarely given passing mark ("mention honorable") he got, even more so if one takes into account the physical motivations. As to Igor, I relied on the community of physicists. He has a point. If referees in reputable journals consider his developments worth publication and if two external distinguished scientists sign reports that there is enough for a Ph.D., why should I be "more papist than the pope" and bar him from getting a degree he could get for the same work in a number of universities? (Not in France, because of the axiom that some of their enemies have spread, that the twins are charlatans, and because they never miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot.)
In view of the imprecisenesses, I insisted on the same mark (passing) as Grichka. So did Simonoff, the Jury chair, who knows them for many years and was their first supervisor -- and already in 1991/92 got pressures, which also went to Bordeaux I university to deny them renewal of registration. Simonoff can confirm that point, and I remember the facts because that is how Moshe and Dijon came in. Moshe felt that this was unacceptable a priori censorship, almost a witch hunt. What follows is a natural corollary, for honest independent people.
Good luck in your endeavour! I appreciate the effort, but maybe you should wait until you come to France to finish the work with the twins. It requires many face to face discussions, and they are as stubborn as a Cadet de Gascogne can be. ---"
So, these are the FACTS. This is the truth. Once for good, respect it. 
ZORRO
:Thank you once again for another rambling tour-de-force, Sophie... sorry, I meant to write, "brand-new anonymous editor."  There are plenty of other things that the Good Doctor Sternheimer said about the Bogdanoffs' work, such as in the NY Times or the Chronicle of Higher Education articles.  Maybe it's my native-English-listening ears, but this letter to Ark has always read, to me, like Grichka is the slightly smarter of two autistic children, whose thesis "is worth the rarely given" lowest-passing-grade possible.  But Igor, who initially failed to defend his thesis, was also given a lowest-passing-grade possible as a sympathetic consolation prize.  You've been here for a decade, thanks for playing, here's your "mention honorable," please leave.
:It makes me thrilled that none of my thesis committee ever felt compelled to give me a compliment like the abovementioned letter.
:--EE Guy 04:23, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  No All-Caps Titles, Please 

message: I pretty much stopped editing this talkpage weeks ago (see ), but I must comment on this. Igor wrote above:
:I would like to clarify one point about the so called "sock puppets" that everyone (and specially rbj) tends to attribute me. I post here under the identification of dynamical IP attached to my provider (Wanadoo). As you know, these IP change very often and sometimes, even if I should still be "blocked" on the basis of the former IP, the new one allows me to edit again. The problem is that I never know if my blockage has been canceled by the administrators or if I can edit the article only because a new IP is running the game.
:Now, this is not a reason to suspect that I am "cheating" and bypassing the banishment. This is not the case and you should know it.
Igor, I don't understand your reasoning. I have requested you multiple times to edit using your registered account, User:Bogdanov. That's simpler and better for yourself (assuming, as I do, that you're editing in good faith), and would also make everybody else's life easier. I don't understand why you continue to edit anonymously after these requests and then complain of the problems that anonymous editing causes. The problem you describe wouldn't exist if you used your account. Or an account. If there's something you dislike about the specific User:Bogdanov account, or if you have forgotten the password, the simplest thing might be to register a new account, acknowledge prominently here that it's you (so that it doesn't get blocked as a sock), and repudiate all others: edit exclusively from it, i. e. neither anonymously, nor from any other account. Problem solved. Bishonen | talk 03:03, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Question to Igor about the problem of anonymous editing

message: Please stop your increasingly intimate love squabble, the both of you. It's of limited interest to the rest of us who named who, or how many terms of endearment EE guy can come up with, and we have to archive this page often enough as it is. Please keep on topic, and if possible also stop rehashing the same arguments over and over, or I'm going to stop archiving from the top and stick your billing and cooing in a special chambre séparée. Bishonen | talk 09:00, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: EE guy and XAL, please stop it