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This archive page covers approximately the dates between 07 October 2005 and 12 October 2005.
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Please add new archivals to Talk:Bogdanov Affair/Archive06. (See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Ze miguel 22:51, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
To all editors using this page for discussion: It is my opinion that the tone, structure, and content of the debate currently taking place here on this talk page has somewhat strayed from discussion of article content, and has instead degenerated into ad hominem argument. I would like to remind all participants in this debate that this article talk page is for collaboration and discussion of matters specifically relating to the article content. It is not a forum for the debate of the merits, personalities, or opinions of those participating in this particular article subject. Please keep discussion on this page solely restricted to matters germane to article content, and I would like to remind all participants that Wikipedia policy expressly forbids personal attacks being made (see Wikipedia:No personal attacks) and it also requires all editors to be civil in their communications and actions (see Wikipedia:Civility). I would like to ask all concerned to please follow these policies. Thank you. Yours, --NicholasTurnbull 01:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Here are the elements regarding the cites I am responsible for (I suppose rbj will do the same on his side).
Note that none of this cites are polite comments said during our PHD attribution. I indeed have such documdent (the "defense report") but I never used it and never made it public. I only use the written official material that was issued, at the request of the University, by experts to technically evaluate the thesis. I also used the official reports issued at the request of the Editorial Board of various physics journals, by experts to technically evaluate our scientific papers.
Here are the elements :
2. Classical&Quantum Grativity (CQG). referee's report
Author : Anonymus referee appointed by the Editorial Board of Classical & Quantum Gravity
Where it was published : The copy of the report was sent to the journal on Feb 15, 2001 and we got a copy by email from CQG the same day
Date : 15.02.2001
Purpose : Evaluation of IG Bogdanoff paper "Topological Field Theory of the Initial Singularity of Spacetime"
2. Chinese Journal of Physics (CJP). referee's report
Author : Anonymus referee appointed by the Editorial Board of Chinese Journal of Physics
Where it was published : The copy of the report was sent to the journal on Jan 10, 2001 and we got a copy by email from CJP the same day
Date : 10.01.2001
Purpose : Evaluation of IG Bogdanoff paper "Topological Origin of Inertia"
3. Comment from Massimo Porrati, Professor of Physics at New York University
Author : Massimo Porrati, Professor of Physics at New York University
Where it was published : An email dated Oct 30, 2002, which was largely distributed amongst physics community
Date : 30.10.2002
Purpose : Informations about the "Bogdanoff Affair"
4. Thesis Report requested by the University of Bourgogne
Author : Roman Jackiw Professor of Theoretical Physics at Massussets Institute of Technology (MIT)
Where it was published : This report was sent by Prof Jackiw to the University of Bourgogne and published on various internet sites (among them : http://igor.bogdanov.free.fr)
Date : 11.04.02
Purpose : Evaluation of I.Bogdanoff Thesis "Etat Topologique de l'Espace temps à l'Echelle 0"
5. Thesis Report requested by the University of Bourgogne
Author : Jac Verbaarshot, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University (New York)
Where it was published : This report was sent by Prof Verbaarshot to the University of Bourgogne and published on various internet sites (among them : http://igor.bogdanov.free.fr)
Date : 18.09.99
Purpose : Evaluation of I.Bogdanoff Thesis "Etat Topologique de l'Espace temps à l'Echelle 0" and acceptation as co advisor of the thesis
6. Zcechoslovak Journal of Physics (CJP). referee's report
Author : Anonymus referee appointed by the Editorial Board of Zcechoslovak Journal of Physics
Where it was published : The copy of the report was sent to the journal on Apr 17, 2001 and we got a copy by email from CJP the same day
Date : 10.01.2001
Purpose : Evaluation of IG Bogdanoff paper "Topological Origin of Inertia"
5. Thesis Report requested by the University of Bourgogne
Author : Costas Kounnas, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Ecole Normal Supérieure (ENS)
Where it was published : This report was sent by Prof Kounnas to the University of Bourgogne and published on various internet sites (among them : http://igor.bogdanov.free.fr)
Date : 22.02.99
Purpose : Evaluation of G.Bogdanoff Thesis "Fluctuations Quantiques de la Métrique à l'Echelle de Planck"
6. Thesis Report requested by the University of Bourgogne
Author : Jac Morava, Professor of Theoretical Physics at John Hopkins University (JHU)
Where it was published : This report was sent by Prof Morava to the University of Bourgogne and published on various internet sites (among them : http://igor.bogdanov.free.fr)
Date : 29.05.02
Purpose : Evaluation of G.Bogdanoff Thesis "Fluctuations Quantiques de la Métrique à l'Echelle de Planck"
I have all the copies of the original documents or mails subject to the above description.
Igor
Given that almost every of these documents were only published by the Bogdanovs and therefore we do not have any trustworthy source, so we could only have quite a relative trust on their complete veracity. I ask for someone not involved in the debate to check with all of their attributed authors (whose e-mails are easy to obtain) :
--YBM 15:27, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
YBM : I really find your above proposal totally insane. It shows how far you are prepared to go : the one who suspects manipulations and dishonesty everywhere is himself...a manipulator and a dishonest person. What else can I say? Did I propose to double or triple check your own posts?
And beyond all this dispute : are you unsain enough to think that I would take the risk to publish this material on a public page like Wikipedia without having all the proofs that these documents are for real? Do you seriously think that if these documents were "forged" (an expression you apply to us ALL THE TIME) their presumed authors would not react and confirm the fraud?
I do not know in what world you live. But let me tell you that beyond what we think of it, your proposal is also embarrassing for all the people that you will contact for confirmation : how do you think a serious professor like Roman Jackiw (or anyone else who certainely does not pass his time on internet) would react if someone abrutly asked him "to confirm the authorship, dates, veracity meaning, status, etc" of their reports? Can you imagine the effect of it?
Perhaps. And this is why you request such a proceedure.
On our side, I propose to send the copies of the originals to whoever accepts to be the "proof referee" of these documents. Once more, if there was any doubt regarding their authenticity, be sure that the reaction would fire immediatly. This is a "self evident proof".
Igor
YBM must be kidding. LLL
I was ironic, of course, but you had understood, had'nt you ? Why would Igor propose the referencies of what he and his brother published if that would dangerous for them ? Think about. LLL
Rama, did you REALLY read the last post of Igor. I really doubt about it. LLL
I do totally agree with what Laurence67 juste wrote. If the DOUBT is ONLY expressed about what Igor writes or publishes, and the TRUST is ONLY felt about what YBM repeats, what Riazuelo says, it's obviously too easy. LLL
Well, I stick to my position too. I do not think that YBM's proposal to double check the content (or even the mere existence) of the reports and comments I published in the artcle is innocent and "clean of bad intentions". YBM knows that the simple fact to disturb again the authors of all the reports issued on our work will (no doubt) have an "irritating effect". Once again these academics will be extremely disturbed by the "nth" question about what they wrote, why they wrote it, etc. To complete the picture, these questions will be inevitably associated to the vague suspiscion that what they wrote could have been...manipulated? or false? or faked? or forged? etc.
All the reports went public in 2002. All of them. Don't you think, seriously, that if these reports had been forged (even for one word : we are not speacking of any problem of translation here), we would have gotten some reactions?
Let's face it. We do not fear any "close scrutiny". All we fear is to disturb once again people who gave lots of their time to analyze our work.
But if you really do not see any other way, fine. Let's ask these scientists "if what they wrote about the Bogdanoff is true or not".
Igor
You see ? Is that clear enough for you, YBM ? Do you need more light ? LLL
---
A good idea? It was before anything else an enormous manipulation of your kind. Let's take your "examples" one per one.
YBL wrote : Unauthorized documents(Majid's report)
It is true that Majid did not appreciate that we published his report in our book as endorsing the whole content of Grichka's thesis. Majid is a mathematician. His evaluation only applied on the quantum groups part of the thesis. He said to Grichka in the phone that his reaction (about the publication of his report in our book ) would have been different if Costas Kounnas had also been published for the physical part. But we did not publish Kounnas (or any of the 15 reports issued on the 2 thesis). You know why? only because we thought it was not appropriate to publish too much material of this kind. That's why we picked only 2 reports : 1 for Grichka's thesis (Majid) and 1 for Igor's thesis (Jackiw).
Now, if Majid was very irritated by the publication of his report, he never asked to withdraw it from the book (which we offered). So please stop speaking all the time about "unauthorized documents". It was a mistake to have published Majids report (especially without Kounnas report) but it is not an "affaire d'état". Unless people like YBM wants to promote it as an "affaire d'état".
YBM wrote : Incorrect report on private conversation (Majid)
What are you taking about? are you referring to the heated conversations that developped around the "Ciel&Espace" bad journalism?
YBM wrote : Heavy cut documents, changing their meaning (Schreiber)
How many times shall we repeat that no author is obliged to quote someone else's comments "in extenso". We quote the documented and argumented part of Schreiber's technical analysis of our work. But as far as his "personal views" were concerned, since he could not provide any arguments in favor of his "opinion", we considered his opinion as non scientific and not acceptable for a scientific text. That is the reason why we did not publish it.
YBM wrote : Out of context documents (thesis reports)
What do you mean by "out of context documents"? Where did we publish "out of context documents"?
YBM worte : Forged proof of academic institutional support (th-phys.edu.hk and HKUST street address)
This is a good illustration of your way to proceed. You are distording and twisting reality untill it looks as crooked as you are. Once more I will tell you that this "so important address" that you quote at each corner of a phrase WAS GIVEN TO US BY THE HONK KONG REGISTRAR!!!!!! I remind you that we legally bought a domain name that we created ourselves (th-phys). It never existed before us. Can you at least understand this? We did NOT EVEN KNOW on what address our site was referenced on the registrar's page. This was not even our problem.
Now the fact that you dare to call this a "forged proof of academic institutional support" is a shame. No other word to qualifiy your attitude.
YBM wrote : (Unargumented) claim of support from inexistent scientists (1, 2, 3)
Here again you manipulate the reality. You know perfectly well that everyone (including you) is using pseudos on internet. We publically explained why we did it and under which circumstances.
YBM wrote : Deeply modified/mistranslated documents, reverting their meaning (Giorgis, Majid, Woit: 1, 2, 3)
Here also you abuse reality. Why? simply because I wrote some days ago that ALL translations from french to english were made by the professional translator appointed by Grasset. This is a fact. The translator wrote a specific statement about this point and explained, line per line, all the translations he did from the Majid's or Woit's text. And contrarely to what you pretend, his translation is, in its essence, exactly conformal to the original text.
YBM wrote : Forgeries (your so-called book preprint, Heudier's letter)
About the preprint of our book you have created all by yourself all the "proofs" that it was a forgery. You and only you has created all that and you know it. We have a written statement established by our publishers that evidence the authenticity of the page you pretend to be false. The shame is that you still continue to pretend that you "uncovered the truth" (when you only manipulate the truth). Next week you will hear some news about this particular problem you have created.
About Heudier's letter, it is a shame (once again) that you still dare to pretend that it was forged. You and only you is writing such an outrageous lie. Can you even produce a beginning of a proof supporting your claim? No! And let me tell you one good thing : if you continue to throw such lies on this discussion page you will have to justifiy them. One way or another. And not by links sending the reader to your Epiphysique website. You know that you are falsifying the truth. Heudier wrote his statement as it was sent to France 2 and you also know that we hold the ORIGINAL OF IT!!! What else do you need?
YBM wrote : It several cases "copies" were not copies at all but forgeries.
In several cases? which cases? can you even document your lies?
In a more general way and as a conclusion I would observe 1 thing :
In the case we ask such or such scientist if he indeed wrote such report, he should of course confirm it. But at the same time I fear that this scientist will add that he does not wish his opinion to be published in any polemical article on internet. Regarding this point, you should ask rbj if he ever got ANY REACTIONS FROM CQG. I am 100% certain that CQG DID NOT CONFIRM ANYTHING REGARDING THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE EMAIL MADE PUBLIC BY KUPPERBERG ON NOV.1ST 2002. Do you know why? because (as all other scientists authors or reports) CQG does not want to be caught once again in a public debate regarding the so called "Bogdanoff affair". This is a simple fact. Ask RBJ : he will tell you that he NEVER got any answer from CQG.
And the same rule should apply to any kind of "enquiry" about such or such text written by such or such scientist. It's simple to understand. Igor
--- No, you did not. You did not authenticate anything about Heudier. You did not authenticate anything about the preprint page (except you forged the page yourself). You did not authenticate anything about "several cases copies", etc, etc, etc.
As soon as we ask you to produce evidence you come back with empty words (which is a gentle definition for "lie").
Igor
Dear Lubos, welcome on this page of discussion. It is really good to see you here.
you wrote : The gravitational instantons based on the topological action could indeed be an important part of a dual, "quantum foam" description of quantum gravity. Nevertheless, it is hard for me to agree with your statement that the Lagrangian "reduces" to the topological term. In the full Lagrangian, if written properly, there are also higher derivative terms that are expected to exceed the "R squared" topological term at ultrashort distances, near the big bang you study, much like the Einstein-Hilbert action, which you write among your terms of choice, wins at long distance scales. These terms appear even if you have 32 supercharges in supergravity, and they are the main reason why we normally believe that the usual geometric and topological intuition should not be trusted at subPlanckian distances. If you think that there are no E-H and higher-order non-topological terms in the action in your limit, you would have to give more evidence for this statement. In that case, it would indeed be an extraordinarily interesting observation.
Indeed, it is perfectly true that in the general string context D = ... , the theory generally induces non-perturbative corrections and a coupling with higher derivative terms expected to exceed the R squared term. But here, the context in slightly different, since we consider the low-dimensionnal sector of the theory. Indeed, D=4 (and N=2). In four dimensions, the expansion of derivative terms can be limited in a natural way to the R squared term (see for instance Kounnas and al). This is also true in our Kaluza-Klein context (viewed here as the D=5 superposition of the D=4 Lorentzian + Euclidean gravitationnal theories). So, on the ultra-violet limit of the theory (associated to the coupling constant g goes to zero) the Einstein term and the R squared term are exponentially supressed of the Lagrangian. Consequently, the only effective contribution on this 'topological limit' comes from the topological term RR dual. In this case of course, the time-like direction of the theory is compactified on the circle of radius zero (where we find the instanton sector, dual to the monopole sector of the 'superposed theory'). From this point of view, the ultra-violet limit (beta goes to zero) and the infra-red limit (Planck scale) represent two sectors of the same theory and can be seen as related by a duality relation of the T-duality type (which, in string theory, exchanges the scales of the theory). Then, in our approach, the so called 'zero-scale' (initial singularity given by the topological term) is dual to the 'physical scale', given by the Einstein term.
This is a brief hint and can be of course more detailed and referenced, if you wish.
Thank you again for your kind attention and your precious comments about our work.
Grichka B. 194.206.212.1 03:03, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Since I regained so far my faculty to edit the article again, I reformulated the section about "Internet discussion"/
Two remarks :
1. Grichka never (or almost never) posted on forums and threads of discussions. Why? because he did not beleive (and still does not) believes that it is possible to discuss real science on internetm (especially in the Bogdanoff context which is twisted by passions of all sorts). Of course Grichka never used any pseudos.
This had to be corrected in the araticle and I did it.
2. About the "th-phys.edu.hk " domain name : I created and bought this domain name from HK registrar for the International Institute of Mathematical Physics whose president is the reputed mathematical physicist Ark Jadczyk. It was me (and only me) who invented the domaine name (th-phys).
When I undertook the necessary actions for the payment of this domain name, the HK registrar explained me that every educational HK domain name remained the actual property of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and was officially seated at the adress of the university. The registrar added that it was not a problem and that we could use our domain name as if we fully owned it. It was only a year later that YBM (again) created a big mess around this official ownership and started to accuse us to use a domain name without any rights to do it. YBM went so far in his accusations, sending dozens of emails to the university, that we finally had to cancel our domain name/
This is the real story about this domain name and I wrote it.
Igor
Registrant Name Mathematical Physics International Institute (MPI) Registrant Address Paris Univ. 4, Parent Rosan PARIS FR 75116 FR
) with, this time not the adress but the name "Paris Univ. 4," (this is nothing less than Paris Sorbonne). You were prudent enough to never pretend, afaik, to be related to this prestigious university. Are you about to pretend that the .bs TLD registrar asked you to add a French university in the from for some nonsensical administrative reason ?
2.9 .edu.hk Domain Name Registered schools, tertiary institutions and other approved educational institutions in HKSAR are eligible to register a .edu.hk Domain Name. You need to provide a copy of your Certificate of Registration of a School from the Education Department of the HKSAR Government, or other documentary proof to us when applying to register a .edu.hk Domain Name.
No. I wrote that it was owned by HKUST
After having checked the paper, I do not see any evidence of what you wrote. Besides everyone knows that journalists are not the most reliable sources.
Yang was and still is a friend of ours. He is a mathematical physicist who got very interested in our work. He used to work in Hong Kong for a while and since he did NOT wish to disclose his real name he picked up HKU as an anonymizer. It is perfectly true that he posted from our home and we never hide it.
Sorry but it does make a lot of sense with administrative structure of the DNS and WHOIS database regarding educational institutions. Any educational domain name is officially owned by an uplevel institution. This system is comparable to the US Educause system (you can check this point). The domain name I created was legally owned by HKUST (even if HKUST even did not it, exactly as it happens for the Educause affiliated institutions).
It is quite possible that I wrote things that may have been contradictory. You know why? Because (contrarely to you) I really did not give a dam to this "official ownership". It is only after you made me aware of it that I started to wonder why it was so important to you. Now I understand that you considered this as an "usurpation" of address, etc.
Absolutly not. I never pretend any affiliation with Paris la Sorbonne. And Paris Univ 4 was never used in any document for .bs registration.
Exact. But endorsment is a different thing than writing. Grichka never wrote anything. I did. Grichka never used any pseudos. I did. This makes a major difference : it illustrates the fact that Grichka (for good reasons) did not beleive that anything coherent and good could come out of forums discussions.
Not months : only days. The dates are there to prove it. Your messages created such a problem in Hong Kong that it became impossible for us to renew our domain name. You are directly responsible of this loss. Admit it./ As you should admit that I cannot accept your biaised presentation of facts.
Igor
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 12:54:07 +0800 Objet: Re: HKU Institute of Mathematical Physics domain In Hong Kong, HKU usually refers to my University which is The University of Hong Kong, but it is not situated at Clear Water Bay. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, normally refered to as HKUST, is indeed situated at Clear Water Bay. Thus I have forwarded your email to the persons in charge of IT at HKUST. However they have found that in fact the information quoted in the website is all unreal, so it appears that somebody had created the th-phys.edu.hk website without proper authorization. They are now investigating the matter. Best regards Nam Ng Director Computer Centre The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong.
Igor, your reversal and comment [1]
are not acceptable; you are neither making the law here (so what you "don't accept" is of little concern), neither the reality ("I have documented this version and instead of reverting it on sight you should read it and consider it as genuine;").
Your explanations about his "Yang" person are not convincing, and we have no reason to noly state that " Igor explained that Yang was a friend of them and a real theoretical physicist, expert in some of their theories (KMS theory, operator algebras) and supporting them but formally wishing to remain anonymus." without mentioning the general suspicion that this person is made of thin air.
Your explanation of the Hong Kong domain name is merely a hugely tendencious tale of someone setting a username to tries to usurpate the authority of hte University of Hong Kong. You have no explanation for the reason to require registration from the Hong Kong registar rather than a French one; the "coincidence" of this "Yang" person (who apparently claimed to be a member of the Unviersity of Hong Kong) and of the "the peculiar domain name of the Institute the Bogdanoffs work for", as you say, remain unexplained. You claim to be a physicist, so tell me the odds for these elements to happen like this by pure random chance ?
And that you choose to describe with great details the tone of your detractors on forums while ignoring your insults to Charpak and hushing the reaction of the national media makes your version utterly unacceptable. Rama 14:29, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Igor, I do not appreciate your constant reversal to a version which replaces basically all documented facts with appologetic and unverifiable statements. Either you formally challenge facts like insulting Charpak (and with good reasons), or you stop removing them.
Furthermore, I had specifically required everybody to discuss and seek a reasonable middle term arrangement; I note that after I made the call, YBM managed to give this a try, and that noone cared to discuss his version with him on the talk page.
Revert wars are bad because they get everybody nervous and angry, not because of some rule. Noone has a guaranteed right to three reverts, there is only one rule which spells Don't be a dick. Statements like "I stand to my position. Look at the talk page (and don't forget, YBM, that you have only 1 revert left" are enough to make me block the user so that he spends the next 24 hours in meditation in the hope that he gets enlightened and comes at peace with the universe. Rama 06:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
PS: To all, try to take YBM's version and include some of Igor's statements -- that he claims that this "Yang" person is a real one, and try to give a concise impression of his excuses for creating private organisations which sound incredibly like academic institutions and have a "University-of-Hong-Kong"-sounding domain name. If that can be done without getting a schizophrenic and never-ending article. These statements are interesting, somehow. Rama 06:59, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Hi. I realize the issues covered in this article really push people's buttons, so I understand why there has been so much debate and conflict, but the quality of the article has really suffered. I'm neutral to the issue and I plan to make some substantial edits with every effort toward NPOV. I'm not really familiar with the subject matter of the Bogdanov's publication, so feel free to edit for accuracy, however, this article is about the controversy, not the paper, so I'm going to focus accordingly. I'm a pretty bold editor, so apologies if I step on some toes. Bubamara 07:08, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I have edited the page at the request of User:Pasboudin and User:Willy on Wheels. Please stop reverting my edits. --The three revert rule is silly 10:16, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I have edited this page again. --PlatinumDane 12:12, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Aaaah, it's so good to be unblocked ! I couldn't wait for having the pleasure of telling you : "Bye bye" !
Igor, Grichka, Catherine : GOOD LUCK with such people as YBM, r-b-j and above all Rama, as the latter has the power to reduce people to silence, if he doesn't like what they say. I see that YBM and him have become close friends, and that the first has become a kind of reference for the article, among others concerning the part "Internet discussions"... YBM reverted my version after I was blocked, but instead of writing in the comments "rv Laurence67 version" he wrote "adding details related to Laurence67 version", and of course it worked : in spite of his promises to treat everybody in the same way ("Further reverts to the article will be treated just the same as this one was (page)"), Rama didn't do anything against him, on the contrary he encouraged to use YBM's version as a model ("To all, try to take YBM's version and include some of Igor's statements (page)") ... Besides, the whole part "About the 3RR and Igor's version" is a model of partiality and abuse of power : you'd think that it's a teacher who talks about his pet to the rest of the class, while insulting the wipping boy (reference to "Don't be a dick !") ! Pathetic...
And as Rama was so kind to suggest that some elements of my version (concerning the violence anti-Bogdanov) could be kept, I see that YBM put himself out to write about it, with Rama's full blessing. And the result... oh my God, I believe I'm going to vomit...
So, Rama, just to answer to what you wrote me on my personal talk page :
"I also hope, though that's not of your responsability, that you see that the "opposite side" (since apparently noone cares to think it otherwise) will have behaved properly in your temporary absence; note that I intend to to treat them no differently that you, as I have advertised several times before."
But you have just advertised, you haven't done what you "intended", and what I see now is exactly the opposite of a proper behavior : the article is completely anti-Bogdanov, as people who are here to criticize them know that they are protected by you. And I don't think it will get better...
OK, I leave this ridiculous farce, I will miss the parody of justice as well, what a pity...
Have good fun !
Laurence67 14:43, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I originally didn’t want to make comments on the Bogdanoff affair on wikipedia. Because of the recent events I changed my mind a little. Therefore here is a small contribution to the discussion.
First of all, I will say that I have deep respect for Alain Riazuelo, I had a look to his thesis and papers.
Now, I read some of his comment on the Bogdanoff universe. bogdanoff universe
I agree with some parts but I have difficulties with other. For the moment I will concentrate on some of them, more will probably follow.
I would like to look at Alain Riazuelo's three following remarks.
1:"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."
I had also some trouble with this part of Igor Bogdanoff's article .Then I remembered some readings I made when I studied physics at university. I have the strong impression that as it is written, the article may appear to contain errors, but adding more details would give it more sense. I say that because of those references:
wheeler1 wheeler 2 wheeler 3 wheeler 4
Can Alain Riazuelo make some comments?
2:“One can also mention that the terms Lagrangian and action, are used improperly instead of Lagrangian density.”
I must confess that I don’t find this very convincing.
I've chosen the following three articles of the same author, we can see that he constantly made the confusion between a Lagrangian and an action .The first paper is particularly interesting because we can see this very clearly with the action of standard gravitation theory, effective Fermi type theory of weak interaction and finally the string action, note that in addition he use L for S.
The following, say p44:
Quite all along this article:
Should we say that this is a proof of his poor understanding of some basic physics? Raising doubts about his mastering of more advanced topics?
3:“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.”
It seems that the term ‘action density’ is a known and used term in basic classical and quantum field theory as every body can see typing it on Google.
A good example is here, p2, equation 3.
I think every body knows who the author of this article is.
Laurent s 16:28, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
YBM, Beside a few points about your version, I find you way to clinging to it no more acceptable that Laurence67's, so I am giving you a 24 hours block for excessive reverts.
YBM's version can be a starting point, but I would like to see the wording improved in a great deal. I understand that that there are facts that need to be documented (use of suckpuppets, etc.), but
1) it is not necessary to describe the thing in every minute detail. Keep it concise and minimal.
2) Wording like
Are unhelpful and tantamous to rants. It is unsurprising to see people reverting to Igor's version in the presence of such text. Compare with (for exemple)
Please try to work on that. Thank you. Rama 06:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The Criticism section is much too large. The quotes should be trimmed down to one or the sentences, and links provided to the actual texts.
This is also true for the Implications for the peer-review system section. Ze miguel 10:21, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
This unworthy paragraph has been bothering me for days:
For comparison, the publications of cosmologist Jean-Pierre Luminet were cited on SPIRES over 500 times, an average of 28 citations per paper. The publications of mathematical physicist John Baez were cited on SPIRES over 1200 times. The publications of cosmologist Alain Riazuelo were cited on SPIRES over 700 times. The publications of physicist Peter Woit were cited on SPIRES over 200 times. The publications of physicist Jacques Distler were cited on SPIRES over 2200 times, an average or more than 50 citations per publication.
Can we please pick up one and add an average. Either Carlip's statement of 2.3 or another one. CatherineV 11:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Rama : I will try to explain the reasons why I profoundly disagree with YBM's version and his sock puppet Ze Miguel (who got "alive" as soon as YBM was banned).
I'll explain my opinion phrase per phrase.
After this first perturbing episode on usenet, one year later,
Comment : I do not thing that "perturbing" is an appropriate expression. 1) because the discussion, in itself, was not "perturbing"; 2) because this expression evokes some events that are unclear to the reader. I propose to suppress it.
at the beginning of 2004, Igor Bogdanov began to post on French Usenet physics groups using fake identities.
Comment : The term "fake identities" is misleading. As if I had made some usurpations of identities and had posted under the names of real existing and known scientists. The truth is different. As all internet users, I only posted anonymously after having picked up a pseudonym. This is why I propose to replace "fake identity" by "anonymously".
He later acknowledged using four of them. All (and other likely sock puppets), acting as physicists or mathematicians, defended the Bogdanovs' work with scientific and/or authority arguments.
Comment : Let's be clear. What YBM calls "authority arguments" are only the fact that I wrote that critics should be written by people qualified in the field on the basis of scientific arguments. That's all. This is a pure question of scientific attitude and has nothing to do with "authority arguments". I propose to suppress it.
Igor and/or Grichka used a variety of pseudonyms, all pretending to be scientists, trying to intimidate people using authority arguments and insulting scientists who criticized them, such as Georges Charpak [2].
Comment : This YBM's phase does not give a faithfull image of the reality. We never tried to "intimidate" anyone. This is not our way of acting. As I wrote here above, our only concern was to limitate "perturbative actions" of YBM and his friends by remind them that the only discussion that seemed valuable was a scientific debate.
One of their thesis reporters, Shahn Majid, even protested publicly on this post because Igor Bogdanov was lying about his opinion on an interview he gave to a journalist from the magazine Ciel & Espace.
Comment : This reaction of Majid was a typical consequence of YBM's negative action. I certainely do not think it is a good idea to insist on this murky episode and to give a "revival" to it. It is useless to pour oil on fire. An encyclopedia has a "oecumenic" mission : to bring closer the points of view of the ones and others. Not to poke wars. I propose to suppress this agressive comment.
The HKU confusion For months, the peculiar domain name of the Institute they work for created a confusion among forum participants
Comment : No, it is not true. The only "participant" who was "confused" about our HK domain name was YBM. And only YBM. He was the only one who decided to contact by emails HKDNR, HKU and HKUST. I propose to add : "a few" forum participants".
as to a possible link with the Hong Kong University or Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In that context, the participation of an unidentified "Prof.Yang" didn't help: the person posting under the name of a Chinese scientist wrote to physicist Jacques Diestler, Dennis Overbye from the New York Times, and on numerous physics blogs and forums, to defend the Bogdanovs' work. He signed: Professor L. Yang - Theoretical Physics Laboratory - International Institute of Mathematical Physics - HKU/Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. In September 2004, Igor and Grichka wrote in a post on fr.sci.astrophysique : I maintain what we have said tens of times. The domain name "th-phys.edu.hk" is actually owned by Hong Kong University., what they confirmed on sci.physics and sci.physics.relativity by this message (at this time they still tried to make people believe that Yang was a real chinese physicist).
Comment : Although I think that this detailed description of the intervention of Yang who (as an expert of the work) posted anonymously to defend our work should not be developed this way in an encyclopedic article, I accept it. But once more, I believe that it does not contribute to the quality of the article. Besides, this question of "th-phys.edu.hk" raised by YBM and now considered as a serious issue by Rama should be clearly understood.
1. I legally created and bought this domain name from HKDNR 2. HKDNR sold me this domain name and told me that it had to bear the official address of an accredited educational insititution (HKUST) 3. I used this domain name for a year without any problems and (contrarely to what YBM claims) without pretending it was acting in the name of HKUST. 4. YBM sent his mails to HKUST and they replied that HKDNR had attributed the domain name without "proper authorization". 5. I was not even aware of such a "proper authorization" requested by HKUST since I never had any contacts with them, my only contact being HKDNR. 6. I did not renew my HK domain name.
In conclusion : after almost a year of "investigations" (as mentioned in HKUST email) I do think that if something serious had been found I would be aware of it. It is not the case, obviously.
Therefore (without pretending to create my own "law" here) I just ask Rama to consider this "HK affair" for what it is : do not give an outsized importance to it. This should not go out of its real proportions.
Strong reactions People involved in the discussions on various Usenet groups and Web fora have sometimes been quite ironic or harsh regarding the Bogdanovs interventions, especially when they have evaded systematically scientific questions, lied about what they actually wrote or said, and used sock puppet to push fallacious authorityarguments.
Comment : Why does YBM repeat so many times the same "information"? I do not accept the way he writes "lied about what they actually wrote" as I do not accept his description of "fallacious authority arguments". This is YBM's interpretation of our posts. His agressivity against us does not have to be applied on this article. I propose to suppress these terms.
Igor and Grichka got blamedv when they presented their theory as a conjecture among others on their own TV show
Comment : Absolutly false and ridiculous. This TV show was an enormous success and we got congratulations from all the responsible of the public network and scientists who participated to the show. The ONLY person who "blamed" us was, once again, YBM who wrote his "Acrimed" free opinion against the program. That was it. Neither Telerama, nor Le Monde did ever write anything against the program. I propose to suppress this phrase.
or when they were invited, as popular TV icons, to numerous talk shows on french channels where they were able, as is customary, to promote their book.
Comment : Again, this YBM's phrase is ridiculous. And should be suppressed from an encyclopedic article.
Their opponents sent complaints to France 2,
Comment : This is false. Only YBM sent a complaint to France 2. Here is a flat copy of the mail addressed in reaction by France 2 to YBM :
De : "Claire Dabrowski" <c.dabrowski@france2.fr> Date : 6 décembre 2004 18:57:56 HNEC À : "Mediatrice Mediatrice " <MEDIATRICE@francetv.fr>, "Jean-Pierre Messager" <Jean-Pierre.Messager@laposte.net> Cc : "Fabienne Gauthier" <FGR@france2.fr>, "Juliette Rosset-Cailler" <JRC@francetv.fr> Objet : Rép. : [suites de ma saisie du médiateur] A propos des MM. Bogdanov
"Monsieur,
"La pseudo querelle que vous entretenez par le biais de nos boîtes mails commence à être pénible. Je vous remercierais donc de régler vos différends ou de chercher réponses à vos questions ailleurs que dans cet échange virtuel et pour notre part, vain. Les scientifiques auxquels vous faîtes référence ne se sont pas adressés à France 2 pour se plaindre de quoi que ce soit ni en amont de la diffusion du programme de cet été, ni en aval, et encore moins ces derniers temps. Par ailleurs, nous continuons à travailler sur Rayons X avec la communauté scientifique, ce qui tendrait à prouver qu'il n'y a aucune "affaire Bogdanov" comme vous essayez de le faire croire dans vos déclarations. Si toutefois vous souhaitiez continuer votre démarche diffamatoire par voie publique ou similaire, nous nous verrions obligés de transmettre vos écrits à notre service juridique pour lui donner les suites qui s'imposent. Recevez, Monsieur, mes salutations. Claire Dabrowski Directrice des magazines
Here is the tranlation of this email :
"Sir,
"The pseudo war that you maintain by means of our e-mails boxes begin to be painful. I would thus thank you for settling your disputes or for looking for answers to your questions somewhere else that in this virtual exchange which is for our part, vain. The scientists to whom you refer to did not address any complain to France 2 neither before the program of this summer went on the air nor after and even less these last days. Besides, we continue to work on 'Rayons X" (the Bogdanoffs program) with the scientific community, what would tend to prove that there is no "Bogdanoff Affair" as you try to make it appear with your statements.
If however you wished to maintain your slanderous action by public or similar way, we would then be obliged to pass on your written documents to our legal department which would give all necessary consequences that would ensue your action.
Sincerely, Director of Magazines"
This email was quite clear. Considering YBM's malicious action and the diffamatory mails he sent to France 2, we had all grounds to follow France 2 in a legal action against YBM. No doubt that he would have been condamned. Not only we did not do it, but we convinced France 2 not to do it. By trying to discredit us, YBM disqualified himself. This mail issued by France 2 in full knowledge of what really happened was explicit. I really think, once again, that Wikipedia s article should not mention any of these episodes that are the direct consequence of YBM incomprehensible action.
and several media-centric information channels in the press and on the Internet covered the Affair (Europe 1, Acrimed, Ciel & Espace, Télérama, Le Monde).
This is a pure lie perpatrated by YBM himself. There is not a word about this "affair" (the television show) in Telerama. Not a word of it in Le Monde. Not a word of it in Europe 1. The only article that was related to the television show was written by YBM himself, (again!) on internet, as a "free opinion" article (even the responsible of the website distanced himself from the article declaring "not having the necessary competences to judge the content of the article".
After having threaten numerous scientists and questioners, the Bogdanovs actually sued, at the beginning of 2005, the scientific magazine Ciel & Espace. The trial should happen at the end of 2005 or the beginning of 2006.
Once again, this phrase does not make any sense. It is not in our manner to sue anyone. YBM writes this again and again to justifiy his incomprensible "war" against us. As I wrote here above, if we had had the intention to undertake a legal action against YBM we could have done it 10 times. With 100% of chances to cause his condamnation by the court for diffamation, harrassement, etc. We did not it. What should one conclude of our decision not to attack him so far?
Regarding the mention of our action against the magazine Ciel&Espace, we have always repeated that we make a major difference between individuals (even very agressive persons like YBM) and commercial entreprises. Ciel&Espace is nothing but a commercial entreprise. They put our photographies and the title "The Mystification of the Bogdanoffs" on the front page of the journal only to sell more paper. This is the reason of our reaction against them.
Now, as far as the trial is concerned, there might be some actions in view of a settlement between the parties. Do you think that such a phrase would help? Definitly not. This is the reason why discretion should apply in such circumstance. YBM has all interest to "blow on the fire" and make the action as public as possible. It is not the role of Wikipedia to be the relay of YBM's action by interfering with a legal action currently applying to the parties mentionned in the article.
I therefore think it is necessary to suppress all these phrases and/or litigious paragraphs.
Now, on the basis of what I have written, I do hope that you understand why I will modify YBM's version.
Igor
Rama:: Igor, I think that the softening of tone, such as removing instances of "fallacious", is appropriate.
My comment : OK. I think it should help to achieve a better article.
Ramav :: However, I do not understand what your explanation for your n-th removal of the mention of insults to Georges Charpak is.
My comment : Because I do not wish to "freeze" a situation for which I have expressed personal apologies. Even if the "insults" against Charpak were not very strong (I only said, in legitimate response to an open -and unfair- attack from him on public TV, that he was "getting old and bitter") That's all I said (pick up the post and you will see). It was only YBM who emphasized this "insult" and made it totally out of proporsion. As far as I am concerned, I do not wish to give anymore credit to any artificial war against Charpak or anyone. Therefore I do not wish to "freeze" for ever in an encyclopedic article an attitude that is not corresponding to what I am and to what we really think.
Rama :: I also fail to understand why you have removed the mention of the article by Ciel & Espace; that you do not agree with them changes nothing to the fact that they wrote a critical article about you and your work
My comment : I dit not refute the article of Ciel & Espace and its negative content. You could quote it if you wish. What I removed is the allusion to the current legal action against the journal. As I said, in similar cases one should remain discrete (if we want to achieve a settelement (which is now quite possible), we better stay away from any polemics in medias).
Rama : (I won't say anything about the other media, apparently this is to be discussed with other users. I won't make a mystery of the fact that I find it remarkable that you should have had access to YBM's personnal mail).
My comment : I got many, many copies of YBM's personal mail. They were all sent to me by people he contacted with the view to discredit us. I got all the copies of his correspondance with France 2 (sent to me by the director of the Magazines). These mails were sufficiant to cause his condamnation. We did not do it.
Rama:: As for the HKUST, I really find it hard to understand how you could possibly have understood that it was necessary to give the physical address of an academic institution to which you were not related to be granted a domain name whose name happens to be very close to the one of the institution.
My comment : As I wrote, I never had to "give any physical address" : it was automated by HKDNR registrar. I never "ask" for it and I did not know nothing about it.
RamaI also find it odd that you should have choosen the buy a domain name in Hong Kong rather than in some other country (well, France, for instance).
My comment The answer is simple : we had published 2 papers in China : one in Chinese Journal of Physics, the other one in Chinese Annals of Mathematics. At this time, one of the referees we were in contact with (and still are today) told us that an educational domain name was extremely unexpensive in Honk Kong. SInce we had these links with the country thru our papers we decided to create our site there.
Rama :: I find your statements regarding the HKU especially difficult to understand in the light of claims such as "
My commentThis post was made in reaction to one of the multiple attacks from YBM who accused me to have created a "fake" domain name. I answered him that it was very difficult to obtain an educational domain name and that mine was not a fake. I told him that this domain name was corresponding to the HKUST and, as such, was for real. But instead of accepting this answer, YBM went much further pretending that I was using HKUST name illegally, wrote to HKUST and as a result of it I did not renew my domain name. Here too I could have sued YBM for his action. But I did not.
Rama :: that is:
My comment : same above explainations.
Rama:: In this context (and several others), it is difficult to believe that this domain name was bought purely by chance. Rama 15:07, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
My comment : I never said or wrote that this domain name was "bought purely by chance". I wrote that I created this domain name. I created it, I submitted this domain name to the registrar, and I bought it That's all I did. If you track back the activities of this domain name, you will never find any "abuse of identity" or any use of HKUST name in any way. I never, never used this name. It is a fact and all YBMs insinuations would change that fact.
In a general way, you got all evidence (especially with the mail of France 2) of the very sad behaviour of YBM. Don't neglect the fact that when he sent his mails to France 2, his objective was to obtain our dismissal of the public network. For that purpose, he did not hesitate to slander us. Without the full trust of our manager, the e-mails of YBM would have been able to cause the loss of our functions. When the manager of magazines suggested us instituting a legal action against YBM, we refused. I would like him to remember it. And to be honest enough to post fair and objective texts.
Igor
I just added this section, which is a major rewite of the Criticism section. I tried to organize the information, and accurately present both points of viez. You will note that there are more pro-Bogdanov views than anti. This version possibly allows for the removal of the Clean Up tag from the page. Comments about this are welcome.
PS: "God does not play dice with the Universe" is a way to say that Quantum Mechanics is an invalid theory. Ze miguel 23:27, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Here is a new comment published on October 3, 2005, by the string theorist Lubos Motl about our work :
"Seriously about Bogdanoffs II
"I was just asked to give my opinion about the Bogdanoff paper(s) on Wikipedia, so I replied with a neutral comment. It is surprising that some people who otherwise propose that everyone should study alternatives to string theory - such as Peter Woit - are so incredibly negative about the Bogdanoff paper(s).
"Why? Because the Bogdanoff brothers are proposing something that has, speculatively, the potential to be an alternative story about quantum gravity. As a string theory believer, I would say "a new dual description of quantum gravity i.e. string/M-theory". What they are proposing is a potential new calculational framework for gravity. I find it unlikely that these things will work - but it is probably more likely than loop quantum gravity and other discrete approaches whose lethal problems have already been identified in detail.
"In the previous article I focused on the creation of myths and their idea about the fluctuating spacetime signature. But let me now ask you about the following proposal that is included among their refreshing speculative ideas.
"Usually we assume that the geometry completely breaks down at the sub-Planckian distances, together with the spacetime topology and all other things. It's because the excited string states and other states appear together with infinitely many higher-derivative corrections. But let us now believe that geometry is a useful picture despite all these effects.
"Imagine that you start with a generic gravity action whose pure gravitational part has terms like L = R / (16.pi.G) + alpha. R (wedge) R + beta . R^2 + gamma . R^3 ... and so on. The topological term "R (wedge) R" would have to be replaced by something else in higher dimensions. At long distances, the first, Einstein-Hilbert term is important (after the vacuum energy, of course). At short distances, we usually assume that the infinite tower of higher-derivative terms takes over and we can't say anything; the metric is not a relevant degree of freedom anymore because we must really add a whole tower of new, equally important states predicted by string theory.
"But try to assume, together with the Bogdanoff brothers, that it is not the case. Your task is nothing less :-) than to finish their work e.g.
"find an appropriate theory of gravity in which the steps below can be justified
"explain that the higher-derivative terms disappear or decouple in this theory at very short distances, or that they can be ignored for other reasons
"isolate a topological term that does not disappear in this limit
"write down the path integral as a summation over the actual quantum foam - different topologies of the Universe - in analogy with the quantum foam in topological string theory - where the contributions are labeled by "exp(-S)" where "S" is a combination of topological invariants of the d-manifold such as the Euler character this will be your dual, sub-Planckian expansion of the partition sum or maybe just some important quantities in quantum gravity
"Alternatively, prove that this picture by Bogdanoffs is impossible in any quantum theory of gravity. I can't do either."
Igor, you have again edited the article as to remove valid information (insults to Charpak, link to the original post "Physics Bitten by Reverse Alan Sokal Hoax", further confused the "th-phys.edu.hk" story) and put extremely tendencious words ("Fashionable"...).
ALso, you editre-inserts lengthly quotations, which is not desirable and is currently worked upon. Please don't do that again. Rama 17:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Rama, if I did remove valid information (like links to the original post "Physics bitten..." etc) I a am quite sorry and, of course, ready to restore these damages.
However, as I repeated many times, I do not wish to give a "new life" to the sad episode concerning Mr Charpak. I do not think that it is reflecting the truth. I have never insulted him. I reacted anonymously to some hard attacks on a thread of discussion. This context is very different from this encyclopedia. Do you think that Mr Charpak would be happy to discover that Wikipedia "took the relay" of some attacks against him? All I said (anonymously) is that Mr Charpak was getting old and bitter. This was in specific context, for specific reasons, and I apologized for it. I do not wish to disturb Mr Charpak a second time : is it that difficult to undersand?
Igor
Igor apologized. YBM never did. Does someone have to be a) a Nobel Prize to be protected by Rama ? b) to be YBM or YBM's friend to have the right to insult people and to be protected by Rama ? Actually both of them. The others, especially Igor can be insulted during many years. It is a proof of the side you have taken from the start. LLL
An edit [4] was lost [5]. Re-inserting:
Reinserted by Pjacobi 18:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Here are a few comments about my 13 changes :
1. Mention : the mention "Honorable" is not the lowest passing grade. It is "passable" (see the 1984 décret) 2. The title of the 1rst thesis : It was Topological Origin of Inertia 3. One of the conditions to obtain my thesis was a presentation of a new subject for it 4. I did not get any mention on my thesis diploma 5. I replaced "vehemently" by "fermly" (which corresponds to the nature of my posts) 5bis Motl statement is quite important : it is a real help for the readers to understand that our work might by valid 6. Since I do not wish to "harm" Charpak again, I supressed this sad memory 7 The same with Majid : knowing him, I know that he hates to be associated in such articles. Do him a favor : forget Majid. 8. Only "a few" (in fact only YBM) forumers reacted about this th-phys "problem" 9. I replaced "domain name is owned" by "was owned" 10. I would say "lied"; Because it was not the case. In science, one does not lie. One can be mistaken. 11. We are in a process of settlement. This mention of the trial to C&E is an interference to it 12. Our last papers are from 2003, not 2002
Igor
Mr Bogdanov deleted the following from this page, so I'm putting it back. I will assume it was an innocent mistake.
I did the following:
Ze miguel 21:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Igor's explanation about th-phys.edu.hk can be refuted very easily :
- consider the real Whois record :
Record last updated on 2005-01-03 Record created on 2003-11-24 Record expired on 2004-12-04 Administrative Contact: IMP maths-physics-institute@th-phys.edu.hk INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong HK +082--50825 Technical Contact: IMP maths-physics-institute@th-phys.edu.hk INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong HK +082--50825
- consider the real HKDNR rules :
2.9 .edu.hk Domain Name Registered schools, tertiary institutions and other approved educational institutions in HKSAR are eligible to register a .edu.hk Domain Name. You need to provide a copy of your Certificate of Registration of a School from the Education Department of the HKSAR Government, or other documentary proof to us when applying to register a edu.hk Domain Name.
- consider the real e-mail I got from HKUST
Your email has alerted us on a rather intriguing problem. In Hong Kong, HKU usually refers to my University which is The University of Hong Kong, but it is not situated at Clear Water Bay. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, normally refered to as HKUST, is indeed situated at Clear Water Bay. Thus I have forwarded your email to the persons in charge of IT at HKUST. However they have found that in fact the information quoted in the website is all unreal, so it appears that somebody had created the th-phys.edu.hk website without proper authorization. They are now investigating the matter.
- consider the real e-mail I got from HKDNR :
Thank you for your enquiry. Information of Billing Contact is the same as that for Administrative Contact and Technical Contact.
- consider all the posts "Yang" and him tried to gain authority from the domain name of their posting address or Web site
- consider that the first explanation Igor gave when I told him that HKUST didn't recognize this domain was that someone in HKUST bought the record for them, now it is a totally different story.
What he said on my role on this affair is as well completly false : I wrote to HKDNR/HKUST/HKU months after he stopped paying for the domain.
He is now trying to desperatly make people forget what they did on Usenet by trying to shut down the discussion they created first by posting under fake identities far before anyone began to talk about their crappy book. He said that he apologized on the insult to Charpak, I wonder when and where since he provided no reference, and I've never read such apologies.
There are others obvious lies in what he wrote and edited during these last days (especially the story about France 2 is false on almost every key points). I'd give an advice to anyone working on this article : don't forget you are dealing with someone able to do this (same text in french ici). --YBM 18:38, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
1+2+3 = 0. Such is your "addition", YBM. Your fancy "demo" is a pure collection of personal hypotheses. Because of your bizarre obsessions (consisting in eliminating us), you are the only person capable to dig so profound that instead of the minerals all you find is the magma. Igor
YBM : You act as if you were convinced of lying. And you are : the story of France 2 is false? Do you want me to repost the copy of the letter I got from the Manager of the Magazines Department? OK. Here it is. As I said this is enough to send you in front of any judge. You know it and everyone whith a minimum of knowledge in the field knows it.
De : "Claire Dabrowski" <c.dabrowski@france2.fr>
Date : 6 décembre 2004 18:57:56 HNEC
À : "Mediatrice Mediatrice " <MEDIATRICE@francetv.fr>, "Jean-Pierre Messager" <...>
Cc : "Fabienne Gauthier" <FGR@france2.fr>, "Juliette Rosset-Cailler" <JRC@francetv.fr>
Objet : Rép. : [suites de ma saisie du médiateur] A propos des MM. Bogdanov
"Monsieur,
La pseudo querelle que vous entretenez par le biais de nos boîtes mails commence à être pénible. Je vous remercierais donc de régler vos différends ou de chercher réponses à vos questions ailleurs que dans cet échange virtuel et pour notre part, vain. Les scientifiques auxquels vous faîtes référence ne se sont pas adressés à France 2 pour se plaindre de quoi que ce soit ni en amont de la diffusion du programme de cet été, ni en aval, et encore moins ces derniers temps. Par ailleurs, nous continuons à travailler sur Rayons X avec la communauté scientifique, ce qui tendrait à prouver qu'il n'y a aucune "affaire Bogdanov" comme vous essayez de le faire croire dans vos déclarations. Si toutefois vous souhaitiez continuer votre démarche diffamatoire par voie publique ou similaire, nous nous verrions obligés de transmettre vos écrits à notre service juridique pour lui donner les suites qui s'imposent. Recevez, Monsieur, mes salutations. Claire Dabrowski Directrice des magazines"
Do you still maintain this is lie?
At your place, I would avoid to make this kind of comments about someone whose professional qualities have been recognized by many poeple under many circumstances. I do not think that you should write your opinion on a public page as you do.
Actually, to be in front of a judge and eventually to be obliged to see a psy, that exactly what YBM wants and needs ! LLL
Of course I'm convinced about that, because such an harassment has only one goal : a legal punishment. Igor is too patient. LLL —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.100.159.74 (talk • contribs) 21:33, 11 October 2005.
See title. Ze miguel 21:44, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Sadly, I believe Laurence67, LLL, and Igor must review this page [6] before continuing to post. (And Laurence, you wrote such a tearful adieu three days ago!) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by EE Guy (talk • contribs) 23:29, 11 October 2005.
Very funny, indeed ! LLL —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.100.159.74 (talk • contribs) 04:32, 12 October 2005.
But will YBM be free to say anything what comes through his mind ? LLL—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.100.159.74 (talk • contribs) 08:04, 12 October 2005.
What I just posted was aggressive, you say. How do you qualifiy what YBM says for YEARS ? LLL—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.100.159.74 (talk • contribs) 08:15, 12 October 2005.
Here are the reasons why I modified the last version proposed by EE Guy :
I. ORIGIN OF THE AFFAIR
- I added the reason why the "Honorable" mention was attributed to Grichka. It was explained in a statement (achived in Wikipedia discussion page) published by Sternheimer, the thesis advisor who wrote that this mention was attributed for non scientific reasons.
- I added "his advisors" (about Igor's thesis who was directed by 2 co-advisors : 1 for the mathematical part, 1 for the theoretical physics part
II. THESIS REPORTS
- I added "15" (the number of the reports)
III. IMPLICATIONS FOR PEER REVIEW
- I suppressed Motl's second negative post. It was OK when it was introduced there by EE Guy (and I left it at this time) but it is not anymore today and for 2 reasons :
1. It does not correspond anymore to Motl's real thinking of what we do (if he had been that negative he would not have published a second article saying that our work might be of some interest)
2. Considering the present "balance" between negative and positive opinions, a new "negative one" appears as a "symmetry breaking". Moreover at this stage of the article it is more confusing than informative.
IV OTHER CRITICISM
If people want absolutly to create an "affair" between Charpak and us, they must have their reasons, even if I disagree with it. But I will only put Charpak comment in context (he said this in a television show and not in a scientific paper).
IV INTERNET DISCUSSIONS
In a general way, I think that the of an encyclopedic article is to harmonize positions not to pour oil on fire. For this reason, I suppressed the word "insulted them" which is out of context. I also suppressed all the expressions (like "lying", etc) that are not right in such an article.
Once more, I suppressed the Charpak paragraph. As I said, I do not wish to endorse a new "Charpak Affair". I have respect for this man and what was written anonymously 2 years ago on the heated atmosphere of an internet discussion should not become the "reference of my opinion about Charpak". It does NOT correspond to what I think and I cannot accept it. Ze Miguel (who is a fair, intelligent and quite objective editor which deserves my apologies for having thought he was a flat copy of YBM) understood my reasons. Wikipedia should be a "peace space" not a "war mirror".
I also moved Majid's protestation paragraph in the "Media Involvement" section where it belongs (although I really would have prefer no to mention it at all. Same for "Ciel & Espace" : the settlement I was hoping for is now going away and it is sad. I really thought it was not the role of Wikipedia to emphasize the trial).
Igor
You just can't help removing which is bad in this article for you can you? And you just decide when an "affair" ends.
You did abuse (and cowardly) G.Charpak, it's a notable part of the matter and it does hightlight a deep part of your nature. Accept it. It's an article about the "bogdanoff affair" which start in 2002, so all the relevant facts which has occured about it since 2002 has to be presented. Wathever they are flattering for you or not. Can you just understand that ? --Luis A. 10:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Here are again some precisions about my changes (Igor)
I. ORIGIN OF THE AFFAIR
- I added the reason of the mention. The precision about the "Honorable" mention given to Grichka was made by Sternheimer in a written statement; Here it is : http://users.skynet.be/catherinev/sternheimer.htm
- Suppression of "also honoralbe" I had no mention. Sternheimer has explained why in the same document http://users.skynet.be/catherinev/sternheimer.htm Contrarely to Grichka my thesis report does NOT bear any mention; I can send it to any neutral party who could check it immediately.
- Niedermaier's mail was not sent to "a frien" but to the physicist Ted Newman
II IMPLICATIONS OF...
- I suppressed Motl's second comment. As I wrote it does not correspond to his present way of thinking.
III INTERNET DISCUSSIONS
I suppressed all the agressive words. And I also suppressed Charpak's mention.
IV FOLLOW UP
I suppressed agressive words (blunders, etc)
Igor
I've added a paragraph outlining the peculiarity of this affair which is talked about on forums but is also generated on the same forums. I believe it is important to mention it. --CatherineV 15:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
CatherineV, I don't find the paragraph inappropriate. My concern is that it doesn't seem to flow very well with the rest of the article... but I'm not sure how to rectify it. However, my version of the edits surely wouldn't be what ProfessorYIN just did to your paragraph. ;-)
All the reverts you have done were documented and explained here above. Let's discuss them one per one.
1. The thesis mentions
Far before this "affair" was discussed on Usenet, Sternheimer issued a statement where he explained why the "rarely honorable mention" was attributed to Grichka http://users.skynet.be/catherinev/sternheimer.htm. He specifically wrote that it was given to G. "for non scientific reasons" (explaining the context of the defense in Polytechnique). This statement is necessary to explain why the "honorable" mention was given to a thesis that is obviously different from a simple "mediocre thesis".
As far as I am concerned, this mention was not given to me. If you give me a private email (you can contact me at igor.bogdanov@wanadoo.fr) I can send you the copies of the thesis reports : you will see that the Honorable mention is present on Grichka's but not on mine. This is a fact and one cannot deny it. It is also explained in the document http://users.skynet.be/catherinev/sternheimer.htm by Sternheimer himself.
Where did I say that Honorable mention was given to me? to whom? in what interview? I would be very curious to know. Because I do not remember having said something that I know being false (unless the journalist put these words in my mouth).
About Charpak
I will never accept to be considered as an "insultor". Why? because it is simply not true. The Charpak episode was a very pecular accident that should not be taken as a representative image of who we are. I have said that apologized for this mistake. I have said that an encycolopedia is not having for mission to "blow on the fire".
About Motl
You decided to add this sentence of Motl which was appropriate when you introduced it (about 3 weeks ago) but not as the article reads today. In the meantime 2 events occured :
1. The article contains more "negative" opinions
2. Motl himself published another article (October 3) where he explains why our work may be of interest.
We have developped a private correspondance with Motl and we know what he really thinks. The image given by certain of his phrases written in June is not consistent with what he considers today as representative. Why do you want this phrase to be present? It is not necessary for the general comprehension of the article. It is not coherent with Motl's present "state of mind".
About insults in general
When people are commenting about our "insulting attitude" it is giving a total false image of reality. Go to the forums and count the number, the incredible high number of times we got insulted by people. Why? because we were "stars" from television daring to pretend that they did something in science. Is it a good reason to be treated the way we were? How would you have reacted if after almost 10 years of pain and efforts all your work would have been ruined by an email which considered it as a "hoax"?
In spite of this, as recogized Peter Woit himself, we never lost our control and remained calm. You cannot consider the "YBM exchanges" as representatives of what we are.
Foucault Pendulum
I am sorry but what you wrote about the F.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. Therefore your comment does not stand.
In a general way, as I said many times, I do not wish to enter into an endless explaination process. I gave you some links and evidence.
Igor
Igor is honest enough to say he got no mention on his thesis and he suppresses it on the article. I don't understand why you insist about that point once again. –––– LLL
It is funny to see how unfair you can be, EE Guy. YBM keeps insulting Igor and other people for years. That's not mentioned in the article. Igor says something negative about Charpark ONE TIME and APOLOGIES and of course, it must be on your opinion mentioned in the article. –––– LLL
There again you just erase the fact that sounds bad for you, and you think that any "explanation" of yours is relevant.
You did write that "the limit of a decreasing sequence is always 0", it's a good indication of the level of the mistakes seen in your book. It's fact, if you erase it, i'll ask for an arbitration.
--Luis A. 17:23, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Luis : where did you read in our book that we wrote that "the limit of..etc.? Can you give me the page, please? Igor
Igor: some problems of memory ?
page 292, one can read "Quelle est la limite d’une suite de nombres qui, sans fin, deviennent de plus en plus petits ? C’est le zéro".
Wich can (without any controversy) be translated as "What is the limit of a sequence of numbers wich, endlessly ,become smaller and smaller? it's the zero."
I'm eager to see the way you'll try to "escape" from this.
Another horrible mistake you made in your book is that the set of the imaginary numbers is the algebraic closure of the set of the real numbers.
--Luis A. 21:38, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Some new answers to EE Guy
:Your statement by Sternheimer is misleading at best. See these links: [13] and articles in the NY Times that quote Sternheimer. It does not belong.
This question of the mention was decided from the very day we decided to maintain the defense in Polytechnique. Normally, Grichka would have gotten "Très Honorable" (as 99% of thesis). But the context of his defense was such that he got "Honorable". This was decided several days before actual defense. It was for political reasons and Sternheimer wrote it in his statement. Who could be more qualified than the thesis advisor to comment on this?
:While your mention honorable may have been revoked (this is hardly worth bragging about), you and your brother wrote in an interview (after the supposed retraction of your mention honorable):
We did not write anything. I checked this interview : as you can see, it was totally written by an english speacker. The basic material was a phone interview and it is quite possible that a mistake was done in the transcription of it. I am used to read some articles written about us where the journalist wrote things that were not part of what I could have said.
In this case, as I said, I can send you (ou whoever you choose) my report of thesis : the mention is not written on it (as opposed to Grichka's).
:Please note that this date (8 June 2002) is after the date of retraction on Cather[ineV's personal Web site (25 Avril 2002)] http://users.skynet.be/catherinev/sternheimer.htm. :I would love to hear your explanations of this.
As I said, I am not the author of the text that was published in this interview. Mistakes can happen. In this case, it is likely that some error may have happen (even on my side). But that does not change the fact that my thesis report does not bear any mention.
:Until Prof. Motl states otherwise, there is no reason for a third party to state that "does not correspond to his present way of thinking." Please note, for example, that you cropped the sentence following your quote from Motl: "I find it unlikely that these things will work." [15] Also note that you maintain another quote by Motl from the same post that, for some reason, you believe still corresponds to his present way of thinking. Please explain how this can be.
If you go to my first addition of Motl's second statement, you will see that the phrase "I find it unlikely that these things will work."was present. Someone else suppressed this phrase but it was not me. I put the phrase "I find it unlikely that these things will work." because I consider it as part of the scientific reasoning. This exactly why I considered it important and why I still think it should stay in the quote.
But as far as his first quote is concerned, I do not think that it is appropriate. We all agreed on a certain "balance" between "negative" and "positive" comments. This extra negative post breacks this balance.
:Again, just because you're ashamed of your actions doesn't mean it didn't happen or it's not relevant. I'm sure Bill Clinton would love to remove all references to Monica Lewinsky.
It is quite possible. But please, compare what is comparable. It is not that I am ashamed : it is that it was said in a particular context (usenet anonymized discussions) as a response to all the attacks we were submitted to by YBM and his band. At the limit, this answer was even not directed to Charpak but to YBM and his friends. If youi read it again you will see that Charpak was not the real issue of this discussion.
The fact that we honestly recognized the use of pseudos is already a proof of our good faith in this matter. Instead of forcing me to admit that I still insult Charpak, you better consider that this accidental episode should not be taken as representative for this encyclopedia.
Igor