Talk:Bogdanov affair/Archive 6

message: :Igor, do you honestly think that anything written above is remotely believable?  Here are verifiable accounts that directly contradict you:
::"In view of the imprecisenesses, I insisted on the same mark (passing) as Grichka [for Igor's thesis]." 
::"Both students received passing marks of honorable, unusual in a system that almost always awards très honorable to successful candidates. The passing mark 'only happens to the worst students -- the students you only want to get out of the system,' says Mr. Verbaarschot." 
::"Igor defended successfully his thesis on June 8, 2002, getting also the "honorable" mark for reasons that it is not up to us to judge." 
:The first statement was attributed to Sternheimer.  The second by a journalist investigating the story.  The third -- and by far my favorite -- is written by you.  (I realize that you wrote that Ms. Knight-Jadczyk modified your words but it is clear from the single sentence I quoted that your response was not written by a native-English speaker).  Your ability to stand against the odds -- indeed reality -- would make Winston Churchill proud.
:By the way, you also wrote earlier: "I am sorry but what you wrote about the Foucault Pendulum is not scientifically right.   In spite of what you say,  there is a problem with the behaviour of the Pendulum. This was at the origin of March's principle."
::I, and anybody else who took any Physics, would love to hear how a Foucault Pendulum isn't well described by mechanics.  But I know better than to get my hopes up.  (In case a reader is unaware, it is simple to predict the state of a Foucault Pendulum using classical mechanics... all you need is F=ma and Coriolis Force.  If the pendulum is really fast, then we use relativity.) 
:Here is the entire post at Jun 14 2004, 5:15 AM where you used a pseudonym to insult Charpak (you later admitted the pseudonym was yourself) on   fr.rec.tv.programmes
::Alors je te laisse bien rigoler en compagnie de Charpak.  Si tu étais un peu plus au  jus de sa réputation, tu comprendrais peut-être que ce prix nobel n'aurait jamais du lui être attribué. Charpak est à la retraite, c'est un bonhomme vieillissant et aigri, dont l'arrogance fait qu'il est détesté par tout le monde (y compris ses anciens collègues). Cites moi une seule de ses soit-disant découvertes.  Il n'a jamais rien fait de vraiment important et il ne compte pas dans le monde la physique théorique.  C'est un expérimentateur. Il ne connait rien aux mathématiques. Encore moins aux groupes quantiques.  Alors qui est-il pour juger des travaux des Bogdanoff?
::PS (Les bogdanoff n'ont jamais dit qu'ils avaient inventé internet. Ils ont simplement dit qu'en 1980 (soit très longtemps avant que le mot internet n'ait été créé)  ils ont fait une prédiction dans leur émission temps x concernant un réseau d'ordinateurs connectés entre eux sous le nom d'internex.  Ca c'est la vérité. Mais est-ce que la vérité vous importe vraiment? )
:::Here is my translation of parts of your post:
::::"his Nobel prize should have never been awarded to him... Charpak is an old and sour man, whose arrogance makes him hated by everyone (including his former colleagues).... He never did anything important and he does not matter in the world of theoretical physics.... He doesn't know anything about math....  PS (the Bogdanoff never said that they had invented Internet..."
:::::(Sorry I had to translate that last statement... it made me laugh! And, no, it doesn't sound better in French.)
:You wrote above "If youi read it again you will see that Charpak was not the real issue of this discussion."  True, it was the value of the Bogdanoffs' work.  You continue to defy reality above and wrote "this answer was even not directed to Charpak but to YBM and his friends."  Wow.
:I am not demanding that you admit that you still insult Charpak but simply take responsibility for your actions. Your vaudeville excuses were amusing... now they're merely embarassing.
::--EE Guy 20:00, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion continued

message: I have noticed a widespread lack of attention to the three-revert rule from both the critics and supporters editing this article, and I would like to let everyone know that from now on all violations of the three-revert rule made in editing this article will be followed up with a 24 hour block without further warning.
The three-revert rule states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours, either in whole or in part (see WP:3RR for the policy).
Thank you for your cooperation.
Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 20:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The three-revert rule - a general announcement to all editors here 

message: ----------
EE Guy,   You can call my "Vaudeville excuses" by all the names you wish;  but you cannot deny that I am sincere and determined not to open a new front with Charpak. 
Now,  I will answer again to your observations. 
:Igor, do you honestly think that anything written above is remotely believable?  Here are verifiable accounts that directly contradict you:
::"In view of the imprecisenesses, I insisted on the same mark (passing) as Grichka [for Igor's thesis]." 
Igor's comment :  I never said that Sternheimer did not write this.  At this time, it was decided that there would not be any "difference" between Grichka and myself. It was only later that we realized that (contrarely to Grichka's) the "Honorable" was not mentionned on the thesis report. The reason is that a rule of the 25 apr. 2002 of the Ministry of Education predicted that the mention should not appear on the thesis diploma but only mentionned in the thesis report. Once more,  mine does not bear this (or any) mention : only the report on the thesis itself. That's why Sternheimer wrote this afterwards.  
To finish with this argument,  do you want me to send you this report? 
::I, and anybody else who took any Physics, would love to hear how a Foucault Pendulum isn't well described by mechanics.  But I know better than to get my hopes up.  (In case a reader is unaware, it is simple to predict the state of a Foucault Pendulum using classical mechanics... all you need is F=ma and Coriolis Force.  If the pendulum is really fast, then we use relativity.) 
It is strange that you read my remark that way. I never said that one cannot predict the Foucault Pendulum using classical mechanics. In fact, it was done by Foucault himself in 1851 using Newton's basic physics.  Did I ever write or said the contrary?  Certainely not. 
If you had read the introduction to the CJP article,  you may have found that my concern was not to predict the behaviour of a Foucault Pendulum but to address the question of inertia.  Do you think that this phenomenon can be fully described by classical mechanics?  The answer is NO.  Even Newton had a major problem with it  (he imagined the "bucket experiment" precisely for this reason).   I maintain that inertia has been presented by many physicists  (Mach, Barbour, Sciama, Dicke, etc) or mathematicians (J.P. Vigier)  as one of the "unsolved mysteries of modern physics".  I wrote in the article that my point of view is that this important question, which is well formulated in the context of Mach's principle, cannot be resolved or even understood in the framework of conventional field theory.
Why does it have an infinite range?  Why is its propagation instantaneous? 
To address these questions, I suggested a novel approach, a direct outcome of the topological field theory proposed by Edward Witten in 1988. According to this approach, beyond the interpretation proposed by Mach, I consider inertia as a topological  field, linked to the topological charge Q = 1 of the "singular zero size gravitational instanton" which, according to  our views, can be identified with the initial singularity of space-time in the standard model (also described as a topological invariant).
Of course,  speaking of "topological amplitudes" to explain inertia is not something current.  This is why it was not well understood during our discussions in 2002.  But it does not mean that the "topological contribution" should not be considered as a valid approach. This is all I write and maintain. 
Now concerning Charpak. You wrote :I am not demanding that you admit that you still insult Charpak but simply take responsibility for your actions. 
The best proof that I take responsability is 1)  that I recognized using a pseudo,  and 2) that I continue to debate with you about my reasons not to publish any negative sentences about Charpak in the context of this article. 
I maintain that what I wrote against Charpak was the consequence of a very particular context.   When I said hereabove that Charpak himself "was not the real issue of it", it was absolutly true.  My real "adversaire" in these heated discussions was not Charpak : it was indeed YBM himself. 
As it is still the case today.  Because it is YBM who decided to "recycle" Charpak into this article.  He is the one that has decided to target us (Grichka and I) and whoever or whatever appears as "negative"  (Charpak eventually)  is a good element to satisfy is objectives. 
This is the reason I do not wish to perpetuate any YBM's elements (or as few as possible) into this article. As I do not wish to perpetuate an artificial and sad conflict with Charpak that I truly respect. 
I hope you understand this.
Igor
I modified the article along my convictions.  All the reasons of my modifications are explained in details here above.  Is it a fair thing to revert my point of view without taking in consideration that I may have some good reasons to defend it?   A good example of it is this questions of the Foucault Pendulum. I explained here above that I never, ever wrote anything similar to what is written in the article.  It should not be difficult to establish it and to accept my version of the article.  
Regarding the Charpak issue,  I consider it as an ethical problem. An encyclopedic article has an "oecumenic mission". Not a dividing one.  Charpak is not my ennemy and I do not want him to feel like it. As I do not want the readers to think that he is my ennemy.  
I might be blocked for what I wrote in the article and I would regret it. But I sincerely do not have the feeling  to "vandalize" this article. 
Igor
:I travel a lot.  Sometimes when I wake up in a dark room, it takes me a few seconds to remember what city I am in, what hotel I am staying at, what I have to do that day, &c.  It's very disorienting.
:I got the same feeling a little bit ago when I read a Physicist stating that it is possible to predict a phenomenon with mechanics but, somehow, mechanics doesn't explain the phenomenon.  If I can predict a pendulum's motion with mechanics then how does mechanics not explain a pendulum's behavior?  The statement in question that the Foucault pendulum (why Foucault? Who knows!) "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics."  I hate to lecture at an intro level, but mechanics deals with the motion of objects in response to forces.  You're trying to morph a quite silly, elementary mistake regarding mechanics into the origins of inertia.
:(Personally, I would have claimed that this mistake was a deep, sophisticated, and misunderstood claim that mechanics does not address the fundamental question of what is "mass."  That question is the Big Daddy of Physics.)
:In regards to your claim that you didn't receive a mark of "honorable," what grade did you receive then?  Your advisor -- and yourself, for that matter -- have written that you received an mark of "honorable."  Simply stating that there isn't one on a thesis report is bizarre. All French theses receive a mark or mention in order to pass the defense, and I'm curious what yours was.
: w.r.t. Charpak, I don't think it's necessary to list specific names.  So let's drop Charpak but retain the fact that it is important to indicate that sock puppets were used to intimidate and insult people.
:--EE Guy 00:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I second the removal of the reference to the Charpak insult. Ze miguel 09:34, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with Predicting Pendulums 

message: Created archive 5 (just learned how to do it). I hope I didn't cut any active discussions. There is now a total of 839 kb of discussions about this subject.
Ze miguel 22:49, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 5 

message: Nicholas, I quickly glanced over your edits... THANKS!! I think you did the article great justice.
:--EE Guy 01:45, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: --EE Guy 04:55, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I have blocked this user and invited him to create another username if he wants to contribute. Rama 07:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oops, I messed up with the photograph when I was only trying to look at it. Please ignore my reverts. CatherineV 08:18, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Nicholas did some good work but also deleted the paragraph I'd added about French threads. I suppose this was unintentional, but if not, could you please discuss before deleting/modifying ? Thank you. --CatherineV 08:11, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh, awfully sorry, it was an accident - I used a text editor to make changes to the article content, and I must have accidentally cut off the paragraph when I pasted back the modified text. I'll be more careful next time; sorry. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) (e-mail) (cabal) 15:04, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NicholasTurnbull In a China Shop! 

message: I was banned and had no possibility to respond to some of the remarks written in the pression DP.
Let me first observe that EE Guy is mistaken when he believes that I was somehow hidden behind the comments about the "solar system expansion".  A simple glance on these comments shows that it is not my style and that these phrases could not have been written by myself.  Beyond that, I find that ee Guy is unnecessarily aggressive and shows a tendency to interpret the facts in a negative way. For example the "affair of the mention" : I offered to send the defense report to him (or whoever) in order to manifest the absence of any mention  (which is not a big deal in itself but becomes such because of the misinterpretations of it).  I had no answer on this point and the "Honorable" came back.  
This proves (except for Ze Miguel who is quite objective and Catherine V who is also editing in a fair way)   that it seems difficult for the team of editors to admit the material that I suggest in my comments. Probably because I am suspected to be both "subject and object" of this article. 
However,  I will submit, once more,  some facts that, in my view,  should be integrated in the article.  These are facts likely to balance the article in a more objective way.  
1. Motl's phrase was not complete and cut in the middle. I added the rest of it to put it in context. 
2. Motl's comment was biaised. I rephrased it along his real conclusions
3. Internet discussions : again Bogdanoffs are back.  But the truth is that I (Igor) was the only one to intervene in forums.  I corrected this point.
4. Charpak : I have explained in lengh the reasons why I do not see a Wikipedia article like the updating of an unhappy sentence in the particularly surging context of an internet discussion. I sincerely apologized thereafter and the return of this phase in this article gives an image which does not correspond at all to reality. 
5. In order to explain why it was difficult to explain our ideas on usenet,  I added that our work is based on quantum groups theory which is not familiar to most of the participants
6. About the Foucault Pendulum, I added that it could only be understood in the frame of Topological Field Theory
7.  Since Rbj added a excerpt of Woit's quote,  I added the rest of the phrase actually written by Woit.
I hope that these additions will be taken in consideration for what they are and not be considered as a simple "reversion". 
Igor
:Unhappily, what you can write and prove, as what I can write and prove, don't matter for most editors of this article. The only reference is : what can be used against you is considered as being relevant, what cannot is "refused" and censored, despite all evidences we can give.
:Laurence67 10:54, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Zero Degree of my Comments

message: Dear all,
I will stop editing this article for now, at least until the Arbitration Committee implements their decision and the dust settles on this situation. I think it's a bit unfortunate, because I believe we are at a point where the article is mostly stable, interesting to read, and factual. Congratulations to both the critics and the supporters of the Bogdanovs for this.
To the critics: Good luck on your hard work, you're doing the right thing, especially YMB who has done such a tremendous work of documentation on the controversy.
To Mr Bogdanov:
::::: that's Dr. Bogdanov, Ze.  you see, he has a real Ph.D. and you can only get those if you make a real original contribution to the body of knowledge.  that makes him Dr. Bogdanov and don't you ever forget it! r b-j 01:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  blessings, mon.  please come back after the bodies have been removed. r b-j 01:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You've been drinking again, haven't you? ;-) --EE Guy 04:40, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Farewell from Miguel 

message: I noticed that LLL accidentally duplicated each section of the article in this edit .  My recent edit attempted to remove the extraneous sections, but I'm not 100% confident.  Please double check my butchering.
:--EE Guy 23:05, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massive Edit... 

message: I once again deleted the list of SPIRES quotes. Two reasons :
*1. The subject is already discussed under "Followups"
*2. This list does not improve the article. Rama and Ze_Miguel agreed that it was footnote fodder. Rama recommended finding a general average (just making that average of the people cited here makes little sense), or possibly John Baez, since he was involved in the discussion with the Bogdanov (but I don't quite like one-sample or 5-sample statistics).
CatherineV 07:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The SPIRES endless list 

message: Afflicted to intervene again on these points but I corrected some factual errors and I made some modifications to the quotation relating to Charpak.
Here are the 9 modifications I made on the article : 
1.  Igor's "Honorable" mention
Although this point is quite minor  (it is of no importance,  in fact,  if I had "Honorable" or no mention at all)  but the truth is that I had no mention on my thesis report.  I offered any neutral party to check this point  (I would send a copy of my thesis report after defense) and the "arbiter" could see that contrarely to Grichka's there is no mention on this documents (for reasons I explained many times.  If the article is supposed to become a "reference",  it has to be exact.  Consequently I suppressed the mention/. 
2Reports on the thesis
In the present version of the article,  there are 2 reports for Igor and only 1 for Grichka.  I therefore added a short phrase of the report of Majid (which also would prove that Majid does not only complain about us).
3.CQG email
It has been proven that "CQG apology"  was only a private email originally destined to some members of the Editorial Board  (so that they could respond to the press in the middle of the "hoax rumor" spread by Niedermaier).   Rbj's idea to reinject the totallity of this email is not right : I suppressed the unecessary phrases.
4. Motl's statement
I suppressed the interpretation that was made of Motl's initial statement  (the one dated June 16th).  Because recently  (october 3) Motl has reconsidered a second post  ("Seriously about the Bogdanoffs II") where he wrote some conclusions that do not confirm his first interpretation (in particular the fact that our paper was unintelligible or the fact we could have had some financial ienterest to defend our articles).  I also think that the editor who wrote that some formulas were "plagiarized" from other papers is a non sense in terms of scientific research.  Because the essence of science is precisly to build new ideas upon the  common body of knowledge where one can find formulas that are identified by many other researchers in the same field.  Motl knows that. And when he wrote that some of the formulas of our articles were "copied from other work"  he did not mean "plagiarized" of course but only the fact that these formulas were known and valid. 
5.  Minor change I replaced  "...convince any other participants..."  by "convince most other participants " .  Simply because some participants  (like Fabio Toscano) defended an other view.  Toscano wrote on the 29/11/02 the following : 
No doubt: I didn't appreciate Dr. Baez's and others' behaviour in this story. Even if I have a university degree in theoretical physics, I don't feel competent to say if your work is good or not, but I'm sure it deserves, at least, attention, meditation and, above all, respect. Personally, I find your ideas very intriguing. This is also, maybe you like to know, Prof. Luciano Bonora's opinion. Prof. Bonora is an execellent theoretical physicist from SISSA (International School for
Advanced Studies, in Trieste) and he finds your theories "daring, original and very interesting".
6.  Charpak I suppressed (once more) this "example of our aggressivity".  Everyone who followed our exchanges on fora knows that we were not aggressive. This is a fact.  We have posted more than 3000 messages on internet.  If one can find more than 5 so called "aggressive posts" on this total it is the maximum  (and these "aggressive" posts were only written in response to the incredible aggressivity of YBM and his friends). Therefore when the article present our way of posting as "aggressive"  it is not true.  Once more,  if someone can collect a significant number of "aggressive posts" I am ready to reconsider the question.  But in the meantime I suppress the Charpak example that is giving a false image of the reality. 
7.Foucault Pendulum being a "piece of Museum"  I suppressed this sentence that does not make any sesnse.   There is no connection between the fact that most of the physicists do not clearly understand topologicial field theory and the fact that Foucault pendulum is a piece of museum.  
8. Minor change I suppressed "Bogdanoff"  after Grichka  (everyone knows who "Grichka is").
9 addition I added (which is a fact)  that "the general theoretical physics community was influenced by the "hoax rumor" and therefore does not invest the necessary time and efforts to decide wether the papers are valid or not".   
Igor
::: your reasoning above for the major reversions have absolutely no substance other than they are nakedly self-serving.  i wish we could assume good faith with you, but you have proven that we cannot.  r b-j 18:12, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Igor continues to whitewash 

message: May I know what does mean exactly : "All user accounts used by participants in the external controversy (involving the Bogdanov Affari) are banned from Wikipedia pending resolution of this matter." ??? I see on the discussion page that Rbj takes part to it, with his own account... OK, technically I understand the difference with the others, including myself : he is banned only for the article "Bogdanov affair". But apparently he can still edit the discussion page ! Is it really fair ??? Shouldn't he be banned also of the discussion page, as we, the other "banned", cannot - theoritically - answer to him ?
:::: "theoritically" that's never stopped you.  at least i abide by the ban and stayed away from the article itself.  can Igor claim the same? your mendacity and sense of entitlement is incredible. r b-j 16:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Collective" ban

message: ... can they fix the spelling of "responsibility" in the Origins of affair section?  (i'd do it myself, but of course...)
Also, can "someone" (gee, i can't ask a banned editor to do this) supply the details (or link to details) of the Georges Charpak quote (that is deleted at the moment) that "the Bogdanovs are inexistant in Science"?  this quote needs to be documented well, and then re-included since the opinion of a Nobel Laurate in physics has some authority (not necessarily final) about the value of things related to physics. r b-j 21:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  i guess not.  and i guess it does mean precisely nothing.  at least to Igor.r b-j 01:50, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  ....I believe the answer to the the question in your edit line is becomming very, very clear to everybody.....Anyway; I have used my "quota" for now; hope (assume!) others take over. Regards, Huldra 02:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: next time someone has to revert Igor's vandalism ... 

message: ... and you will see who insulted whom !
Erratum3 06:28, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Read the french fora !

message: Interesting controversy, this! Wow, I didn't expect the science community to cause a hoo-ha here! --Adam Paul 21:58, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: do you remember Cold fusion?  or Jan Hendrik Schön? it happens once in a while. r b-j 23:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting topic 

message: from John Baez's Bogdanov page : Indeed, many aspects of the original rumor are known to be in error. According to Niedermaier, both Bogdanoffs conducted their thesis defense on the same day, in a rented hall with TV crews present. In fact, it seems clear that the Bogdanoffs got their Ph.D.'s at different times. Grichka got a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Universite de Bourgogne on June 26 1999, passing at the lowest level. On the same day, Igor's thesis committee failed him. He later got a Ph.D. in Physics from the Universite de Bourgogne on July 8, 2002. 
from the New York Times article: After two years at the University of Bordeaux, they moved to the University of Bourgogne and apprenticed themselves to Dr. Moshe Flato, founder of the journal Letters in Mathematical Physics and a prominent theorist known for his unconventional ways. When Dr. Flato died in 1998, a longtime associate, Dr. Daniel Sternheimer, a mathematician at C.N.R.S., the French center for scientific research, took over as the twins' adviser. 
For the most part, however, the brothers were left to work on their own without much supervision, "pursuing ideas that are quite a bit out of the mainstream," said Dr. Jacobus Verbaarschot, a physicist now at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and one of the examiners for Grichka Bogdanov's doctoral thesis in 1999. 
Dr. Sternheimer described the twins as stubborn "wunderkids" with very high I.Q.'s, who have a hard time understanding that they are not "the Einstein brothers" and prone to shooting themselves in the foot with vague statements and an "impressionistic" style. He called teaching them "like teaching My Fair Lady to speak with an Oxford accent." 
Certainly they did not come off as the Einstein brothers in their dissertations. In June 1999, Grichka was granted a Ph.D. in mathematics by the École Polytechnique in Paris but with an "honorable," the lowest passing grade. 
Igor, however, failed. The examining committee agreed that he could try again if he had three papers published in peer-reviewed journals, a common litmus test of legitimacy, Dr. Jackiw said. 
"One has to have trust in the community," he explained. Igor's thesis had many things Dr. Jackiw didn't understand, but he found it intriguing. "All these were ideas that could possibly make sense," he said. "It showed some originality and some familiarity with the jargon. That's all I ask." 
Igor got his degree in theoretical physics from the University of Bourgogne in July, also with the lowest possible grade, one that is seldom given, Dr. Sternheimer said. 
"These guys worked for 10 years without pay," he said. "They have the right to have their work recognized with a diploma, which is nothing much these days."
So it appears that the WP article has switched around the two degrees.  none of Igor's other edits are legitimate and he should never be allowed to edit this article about himself.  he must be held to the ArbCom injunction and he is not fooling anybody with his sock-puppets.  (what an incredible narcissist.) r b-j 18:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  regarding Igor's latest complaint... 

message: It has been suggested, by Rbj, that the article be protected for a set period of time, being unprotected at intervals of perhaps a week for a scheduled window of perhaps two hours then again protected until the next scheduled editing window. This would reduce cleanup considerably Fred Bauder 21:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: just for everyone's information, the text for this proposal is at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Regarding_The_Bogdanov_Affair/Workshop#A_proposal_regarding_enforcement .  i dunno where it is best to have any discussion regarding it, here or there. r b-j 21:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Systemic protection

message: I did a copy-and-paste job spamming this article across Wikipedia. --J.Bogdanov 09:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Didn't get very far, though. You've been blocked indefinitely. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 10:02, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Hello

message: The following are proposals to modify the article, please discuss accordingly.
:: i hope you don't mind me interspersing comments, Ze.
::: No problem, r-b-j.
* Alain Connes is an important French mathematician, recipient of the Fields medal. The following is a quote from him about the articles of the Bogdanovs: "Il ne m’a pas fallu longtemps pour m’assurer qu’ils parlent de choses qu’ils ne maîtrisent pas."; translated: "It didn't take me long to make sure that they were talking about things they don't fully understand." I think the quote should be included in the list of critic quotes, replacing another one for balance.
:: fine by me.  i dunno if other editors or the admins or arbcom will like an "piling on".  my feeling is if it is factual (with some documentable link trail), relevant, and salient, there should be no reason to exclude such information.
::: The source is Le Monde sorry, in French. In order to avoid piling on, I propose to remove another quote, for instance the one from Jacques Distler.
* The venue where Georges Charpak said that the Bogdanovs are inexistent in science should be removed. It looks like a way to minimize the damage.
:: i think the venue is needed to support the factuality of the speaking of the statement.  Charpak or his reputation has to defend the factuality of the content of the statement.
::: Fair enough, I won't add that.
* Another domain name has been created in the Bahamas by the Bogdanovs just a few days after th-phys.edu.hk: maths-phys.edu.bs - the domain was registered as belonging to the famous Sorbonne University.
:: are they using it for some reason?  i am not sure of the salence of this information.  why add clutter.  if they end up using the domain to make statements or claims or to post the results of real research, it becomes salient.
::: It was only used to publish comments on a french forum. The reason I thought it was relevant is that the contact information falselly lists Univ. Paris 4, which is La Sorbonne.
* In 1991, the Bogdanovs wrote a book titled "Dieu et la Science" (God and Science). On the back cover, it is stated that they have PhDs in science. The Bogdanovs have maintained that this is an error from their book editor.
:: this is a known fact for quite a while.  it has to do with the story of the brothers approaching John D. Barrow, a professor of mathematical sciences at the University of Cambridge, who says the brothers contacted him "to obtain Ph.D.'s very quickly...." "...and they tried to con me into becoming an examiner," he says. "There were two theses that they had submitted. They were laughable compendiums." As for the brothers, he says, "I regard them as mysterious people, not as hoaxers."   (from John Baez's web page.)  maybe it should be included.  i don't want to be accused of "piling on" any dirt.
::: I had heard about that, but not all the details :) From what I understood, they were in a big hurry to get PhDs because they had an ongoing plagiarism lawsuit about the book "God and Science" (which they actually won) and the fact that they didn't have actual PhDs weakened their case. I don't know if any of this is relevant to the current article.
* The lawsuit against the magazine Ciel & Espace is for slander. This should be mentioned.
:: probably.  it's a quickie.  also, if the lawsuit gets resolved in any way, that information should be included.
* While the PhDs were obtained from the University of Bourgogne, a room was rented at the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique in Paris for the defense of both thesis. The director of Polytechnique tried to cancel the event because of concerns that the room would be filled with TV crews and journalists, and that the school would be seen as endorsing the delivery of the diplomas. The Bogdanovs refused to cancel the event.
:: some of this is in that original letter from Niedermaier.  some is information that i have never seen before, but it does not surprize me.  do you have some documentable evidence, Ze?  (about the "director of Polytechnique tried to cancel the event because of concerns that the room would be filled with TV crews and journalists, and that the school would be seen as endorsing the delivery of the diplomas."?)  i don't think it should be included if it can't be proven or at least supported by outside evidence. 
::: Again in French, sorry: . This is actually the article of the magazine Ciel & Espace that prompted the lawsuit. Quick translation: "[Dominique Grésillon, director of the Polytechnique doctoral school] answers that the Bogdanovs wanted to defend their thesis at Polytechnique in order to maintain confusion over their merits. 'When I heard that the thesis were going to be defended in our premices, while they have nothing to do with Polytechnique, I discussed the matter with some professors of the school. Some decided to attend the defences, which is a public event, nothing more'". Also look at this, from the Bogdanov themselves, in which they state that they were requested to cancel the event.
Ze miguel 14:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  r b-j 16:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks a lot for your comments, r-b-j. BTW, I think the article is too long right now, and we should try to remove unnecessary cruft. -- Ze miguel 17:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  i think we need to be very, very, very careful about changing, adding, subtracting any substantial amount of content.  i think this article needs to "settle down" and small evolutionary changes made rather than any big rewrite.  i think the admins (like Nicholas Turnbull and, was it Metaeducation?) did a superb rewrite (even though i had problems with some deletions that later got fixed). r b-j 18:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Modification proposals