Bogdanov affair
Controversy over PhDs and peer review in theoretical physics.
The Bogdanov affair was a controversy in the early 2000s over the legitimacy of PhD degrees in theoretical physics obtained by French twins Igor and Grichka Bogdanov at the University of Burgundy. The dispute began with allegations that their work was nonsensical and possibly a deliberate hoax targeting weaknesses in the peer review system. It spread from Usenet to mainstream media, prompting reflection among physicists on how peer review can fail.
Quick Facts
- University
- University of Burgundy
- Initial supervisor
- Moshé Flato
- Subsequent supervisor
- Daniel Sternheimer
Facts from the source article.
Origin
In 1991, the Bogdanov twins released Dieu et la Science, a French bestseller based on conversations with Catholic philosopher Jean Guitton. Trinh Xuan Thuan, an astronomy professor at the University of Virginia, claimed the book plagiarized his 1988 work The Secret Melody. A French court initially sided with Thuan, but the case was settled out of court, and the Bogdanovs later denied any misconduct. Thuan believed the lawsuit pushed the brothers to rush into earning doctorates, since the book’s back cover said they already had them. Starting in 1993, they pursued doctorates under mathematical physicist Moshé Flato at the University of Burgundy. After Flato died in 1998, CNRS researcher Daniel Sternheimer took over. Sternheimer noted the twins saw themselves as “the Einstein brothers” and often made vague, impressionistic remarks. He compared guiding them to “teaching My Fair Lady to speak with an Oxford accent.” Still, he told The Chronicle of Higher Education that parts of Grichka’s thesis within his own field met PhD standards.
Media reports and comments from scientists
The controversy first erupted in online forums before spreading to the press. The Register covered the dispute on November 1, 2002, and soon after, outlets like The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nature, and The New York Times ran stories featuring comments from physicists. Roman Jackiw of MIT, who had approved Igor Bogdanov’s thesis, told the Times he found it intriguing despite many unclear points. He defended it, saying the ideas could potentially make sense and showed originality and a grasp of the jargon, which was all he required. In contrast, Ignatios Antoniadis of the École Polytechnique, who had approved Grichka Bogdanov’s thesis, later changed his mind. He told Le Monde that his initial favorable opinion came from a quick, lenient reading, and he was completely wrong—the scientific language was just a facade hiding incompetence and ignorance of basic physics. In May 2001, the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity reviewed a paper by both Bogdanovs titled “Topological theory of the initial singularity of spacetime.” One referee called it sound, original, and interesting, recommending publication after revisions. The paper was accepted seven months later. After the article came out and the controversy grew, the journal’s senior publisher Andrew Wray and co-editor Hermann Nicolai issued a statement. They acknowledged that despite best efforts, the peer review process was not foolproof, and the paper had slipped through. The editorial board agreed it should not have been published, and steps were taken to strengthen future reviews.
Aftermath
An unidentified individual using the name "Professor L. Yang" and an email address at th-phys.edu.hk wrote to physicists John Baez, Jacques Distler, and Peter Woit, to journalist Dennis Overbye, and on physics blogs and forums, defending the Bogdanov papers. The signature claimed affiliation with the "International Institute of Mathematical Physics—HKU/Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong." The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is located in Clear Water Bay, not Hong Kong University (HKU). The Bogdanovs claimed the domain was owned by HKU, but this was not confirmed officially, and no Prof. Yang appeared on the HKU physics department roster; the university had no such institute. Suspicions arose that Yang was a pseudonym of the Bogdanovs, but Igor Bogdanov maintained Yang was a real mathematical physicist posting anonymously from Igor's apartment. In 2002 the Bogdanovs launched a weekly TV show Rayons X on France 2. In August 2004 they presented a 90-minute cosmology special introducing their theory. In 2004 they published Avant Le Big Bang, a popular science book based on their theses. Critics cited elementary errors in the book, including a statement that the golden number φ is transcendental, an assumption that the limit of a decreasing sequence is always zero, and that the expansion of the Universe implies planets of the Solar System have grown farther apart.
Reflections upon the peer-review system
Some media coverage cast a negative light on theoretical physics, suggesting it had become impossible to distinguish a valid paper from a hoax. Overbye's New York Times article and Declan Butler's Nature piece voiced this opinion. Posters on blogs and Usenet used the affair to criticize the present status of string theory; Peter Woit devoted a chapter of Not Even Wrong to the affair for this reason. George Johnson's New York Times report concluded that physicists generally decided the papers were "probably just the result of fuzzy thinking, bad writing and journal referees more comfortable with correcting typos than challenging thoughts." String theorist Aaron Bergman, in a review of Not Even Wrong, argued that the Bogdanovs' writings had almost nothing to do with string theory, and that a pair of non-string theorists got nonsensical papers not about string theory published in journals not generally used by string theorists, which he said was an indictment of something but only marginally relevant to string theory. Jacques Distler argued the media coverage's tone had more to do with journalistic practices than with physics, criticizing the "balanced" approach of presenting two sides as shedding no light and leaving the reader shaking his head.
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