Editing Bogdanov affair (section)

===Online criticism of the papers===
[[Image:Le petit Parisien illustre 2nov1902.jpg|thumb|A [[Foucault pendulum]], "an icon of French science",<ref name="johnson"/> illustrated in the magazine ''[[Le Petit Parisien]]'' (1902).]]
After the start of the Usenet discussion, most comments were critical of the Bogdanovs' work. For example, [[John C. Baez]] stated that the Bogdanov papers are "a mishmash of superficially plausible sentences containing the right buzzwords in approximately the right order. There is no logic or cohesion in what they write."<ref name = "Baez web"/> [[Jacques Distler]] voiced a similar opinion, proclaiming "The [Bogdanovs'] papers consist of buzzwords from various fields of mathematical physics, string theory and quantum gravity, strung together into syntactically correct, but semantically meaningless prose."<ref name="distler-bogdanorama">{{cite web
| title=Bogdanorama
| url = http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000375.html
| first = Jacques
| last = Distler
| date = 2004-06-05
| access-date = 2019-07-21}}</ref>

Others compared the quality of the Bogdanov papers with that seen over a wider arena. "The Bogdanoffs' work is significantly more incoherent than just about anything else being published", wrote [[Peter Woit]]. He continued, "But the increasingly low standard of coherence in the whole field is what allowed them to think they were doing something sensible and to get it published."<ref name="nature"/> Woit later devoted a chapter of his book ''Not Even Wrong'' (2006) to the Bogdanov affair.<ref name="Woit2006">{{cite book |last=Woit |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Woit |title=Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law |chapter=The Bogdanov Affair |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pcJA3i0xKAUC&pg=PA213 |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |year=2006 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/notevenwrongfail00woit/page/213 213–220] |isbn=978-0-465-09275-8 |oclc=1035851234 |url=https://archive.org/details/notevenwrongfail00woit/page/213 }}</ref>

Participants in the discussions were particularly unconvinced by a statement in the "Topological origin of inertia" paper that "whatever the orientation, the plane of oscillation of [[Foucault pendulum|Foucault's pendulum]] is necessarily aligned with the initial [[gravitational singularity|singularity]] marking the origin of physical space." In addition, the paper claimed, the Foucault pendulum experiment "cannot be explained satisfactorily in either classical or relativistic mechanics".<ref name = "Baez web"/> The physicists commenting on Usenet found these claims and subsequent attempts at their explanation peculiar,<ref name = "Baez web"/><ref name="baez-inertia">{{cite newsgroup
  | title = Re: Physics bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?
  | author = Baez, John
  | date = 2002-11-21
  | newsgroup = sci.physics.research
  |message-id= arf6pq$5hh$1@glue.ucr.edu
  | url = https://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/msg/5671bd2198263918
  | access-date = 2019-07-21}}</ref><ref>{{cite newsgroup
  | title = Re: Physics bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?
  | author = Grieu, Francois
  | date = 2002-11-06
  | newsgroup = sci.physics.research
  |message-id= B9EED39F.4D04%fgrieu@micronet.fr
  | url = https://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research/msg/1921871a7e78b628
  | access-date = 2019-07-21}}</ref> since the trajectory of a Foucault pendulum—a standard museum piece—is accurately predicted by [[classical mechanics]]. The Bogdanovs explained that these claims would only be clear in the context of topological field theory.<ref>{{cite newsgroup
  | title = Re: Physics bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?
  | author = Bogdanov, Igor
  | date = 2002-11-06
  | newsgroup = sci.physics.research
  |message-id= e8e077d9.0211060607.59b42657@posting.google.com
  | url = https://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research/msg/dea4656ea8962736
  | access-date = 2019-07-22}}</ref> Baez and Russell Blackadar attempted to determine the meaning of the "plane of oscillation" statement; after the Bogdanovs issued some elaborations, Baez concluded that it was a complicated way of rephrasing the following:
<blockquote>Since the [[Big Bang|big bang]] happened everywhere, no matter which way a pendulum swings, the plane in which it swings can be said to "intersect the big bang".</blockquote>
However, Baez pointed out, this statement does not in fact concern the Big Bang, and is entirely equivalent to the following:
<blockquote>No matter which way a pendulum swings, there is some point on the plane in which it swings.</blockquote>
Yet this rephrasing is itself equivalent to the following statement: <blockquote>Any plane contains a point.</blockquote> If ''this'' was the essence of the statement, Baez noted, it cannot be very useful in "explaining the origin of [[inertia]]".<ref name="baez-inertia"/>

[[Urs Schreiber]], then a [[postdoctoral researcher]] at the [[University of Hamburg]], noted that the mention of the Foucault pendulum was at odds with the papers' general tone, since they generally relied upon more "modern terminology". (According to [[George Johnson (writer)|George Johnson]], the Foucault pendulum is "an icon of French science that would belong in any good Gallic spoof."<ref name="johnson"/>) Schreiber identified five central ideas in the Bogdanovs' work—"'result' A" through "'result' E"—which are expressed in the jargon of [[statistical mechanics]], [[topological quantum field theory|topological field theory]] and [[physical cosmology|cosmology]]. One bit of jargon, the [[Hagedorn temperature]], comes from [[string theory]], but as Schreiber notes, the paper does not use this concept in any detail; moreover, since the paper is manifestly not a string theory treatise, "considering the role the Hagedorn temperature plays in string cosmology, this is bordering on self-parody." Schreiber concludes that the fourth "result" (that the spacetime [[Metric tensor|metric]] "at the initial singularity" must be [[Riemannian manifold|Riemannian]]) contradicts the initial assumption of their argument (an [[FRW cosmology]] with [[Pseudo-Riemannian manifold|''pseudo''-Riemannian metric]]). The fifth and last "result", Schreiber notes, is an attempt to resolve this contradiction by "invok[ing] quantum mechanics". The Bogdanovs themselves described Schreiber's summary as "very accurate"; for more on this point, see [[#Schreiber comment|below]]. Schreiber concluded,
<blockquote>Just to make sure: I do not think that any of the above is valid reasoning. I am writing this just to point out what I think are the central 'ideas' the authors had when writing their articles and how this led them to their conclusions.<ref name="schreiber">{{cite web
  | author = Schreiber, Urs
  | title = Sigh
  | website = The String Coffee Table
  | date = 2004-06-07
  | url = http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/string/archives/000377.html
  | access-date = 2019-07-21}}</ref></blockquote>

Eli Hawkins of [[Pennsylvania State University]] voiced a similar concern about "The [[KMS state]] of spacetime at the Planck scale".

<blockquote>The main result of this paper is that this [[thermodynamic equilibrium]] should be a KMS state. This almost goes without saying; for a quantum system, the KMS condition is just the concrete definition of thermodynamic equilibrium. The hard part is identifying the quantum system to which the condition should be applied, which is not done in this paper.<ref name="hawkins"/></blockquote>

Both Baez and, later, [[Peter Woit]] noted that content was largely repeated from one Bogdanov paper to another.<ref name = "Baez web"/><ref name="Woit2006" />

[[Image:Hopf algebra.svg|250px|thumb| The defining conditions of a Hopf algebra can be expressed using a [[commutative diagram]].]]
[[Damien Calaque]] of the [[Louis Pasteur University]], [[Strasbourg]], criticized Grichka Bogdanov's unpublished preprint "Construction of cocycle bicrossproducts by twisting". In Calaque's estimation, the results presented in the preprint did not have sufficient novelty and interest to merit an independent journal article, and moreover the principal theorem was, in its current formulation, false: Grichka Bogdanov's construction yields a [[bialgebra]] which is not necessarily a [[Hopf algebra]],<ref name="calaque">{{cite web
  | author = Calaque, Damien
  | title = Comments on Grichka Bogdanov's unpublished preprint
  | url = http://math.univ-lyon1.fr/~calaque/bogda/bogda.pdf
  | access-date = 2019-07-22 |language=fr}}</ref> the latter being a type of mathematical object which must satisfy additional conditions.

Eventually, the controversy attracted mainstream media attention, opening new avenues for physicists' comments to be disseminated. {{Lang|fr|[[Le Monde]]}} quoted [[Alain Connes]], recipient of the 1982 [[Fields Medal]], as saying, "I didn't need long to convince myself that they're talking about things that they haven't mastered."<ref name="le-monde"/> ''The New York Times'' reported that the physicists [[David Gross]], [[Carlo Rovelli]] and [[Lee Smolin]] considered the Bogdanov papers nonsensical.<ref name="overbye"/><ref name="distler-2002"/> [[Nobel Prize in Physics|Nobel laureate]] [[Georges Charpak]] later stated on a French talk show that the Bogdanovs' presence in the scientific community was "nonexistent".<ref>[[France 2]] TV talk show, ''Tout le monde en parle'', June 12, 2004. See {{cite web|url=https://www.nouvelobs.com/rue89/rue89-nos-vies-connectees/20100930.RUE8748/quand-charpak-parlait-de-son-nobel-et-faisait-le-mariole.html |title=Quand Charpak parlait de son Nobel (et faisait le mariole) |last=Riché |first=Pascal |website=[[L'Obs]] |date=2010-09-30 |access-date=2018-11-21 |language=fr}}</ref><ref name="acrimed"/>

The most positive comments about the papers themselves came from [[string theory|string theorist]] [[Luboš Motl]]:

<blockquote>...Some of the papers of the Bogdanoff brothers are really painful and clearly silly ... But the most famous paper about the solution of the initial singularity is a bit different; it is more sophisticated.

...it does not surprise me much that Roman Jackiw said that the paper satisfied everything he expects from an acceptable paper—the knowledge of the jargon and some degree of original ideas. (And be sure that Jackiw, Kounnas, and Majid were not the only ones with this kind of a conclusion.)

...Technically, their paper connects too many things. It would be too good if all these ideas and (correct) formulae were necessary for a justification of a working solution to the initial singularity problem. But if one accepts that the papers about these difficult questions don't have to be just a well-defined science but maybe also a bit of inspiring art, the brothers have done a pretty good job, I think. And I want to know the answers to many questions that are opened in their paper.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/06/bogdanoff-papers.html |title=The Bogdanoff papers |first=Luboš |last=Motl |website=motls.blogspot.com |date=2005-06-16 |access-date=2019-07-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220119174855/http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/06/bogdanoff-papers.html |archive-date=January 19, 2022}}</ref></blockquote>

Motl's measured support for "Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime", however, stands in stark contrast to Robert Oeckl's official [[MathSciNet]] review, which states that the paper is "rife with nonsensical or meaningless statements and suffers from a serious lack of coherence," follows up with several examples to illustrate his point, and concludes that the paper "falls short of scientific standards and appears to have no meaningful content."<ref name="oeckl">{{cite journal | last=Oeckl | first=Robert | title=Review of 'Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime' | publisher=[[MathSciNet]] | mr =1894907 }}</ref> An official report from the [[Centre national de la recherche scientifique]] (CNRS), which became public in 2010, concluded that the paper "''ne peut en aucune façon être qualifié de contribution scientifique''" ("cannot in any way be considered a scientific contribution").<ref name="huet2010">{{cite news |url=http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/2010/10/15/un-document-accablant-pour-les-bogdanov/ |title=Un document accablant pour les Bogdanov |last=Huet |first=Sylvestre |work=[[Libération]] |date=2010-10-15 |access-date=2019-07-21 |language=fr |archive-date=2019-07-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190712152853/http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/2010/10/15/un-document-accablant-pour-les-bogdanov/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://m0.libe.com/blogs/sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/2010/10/15/rapp-bogdanovcopy.pdf |title=Rapport sur l'article "Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime" |access-date=2019-07-21 |archive-date=2019-07-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190721174119/http://m0.libe.com/blogs/sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/2010/10/15/rapp-bogdanovcopy.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>{{efn|One point noted by Schreiber, Oeckl and the CNRS report is the claim, "A theory is topological if (the [[Lagrangian (field theory)|Lagrangian]] <math>L</math> being nontrivial) it does not depend on <math>L</math>." Oeckl calls this "plain nonsense",<ref name="oeckl"/> while the CNRS report observes that this would mean "''la théorie ne dépend pas de ce qui la définit''" ("the theory does not depend on that which defines it").<ref name="huet2010"/>}} The CNRS report summarized the Bogdanovs' theses thusly: "''Ces thèses n’ont pas de valeur scientifique. […] Rarement aura-t-on vu un travail creux habillé avec une telle sophistication''" ("These theses have no scientific value. [...] Rarely have we seen a hollow work dressed with such sophistication''"'')''.''<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=http://sciences.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/10/16/les-jumeaux-bogdanov-etrilles-par-le-cnrs/|title=Les jumeaux Bogdanov étrillés par le CNRS|last=Parienté|first=Jonathan|date=2010-10-16|work=En quête de sciences|access-date=2018-02-24|publisher=[[Le Monde]]|language=fr-FR|archive-date=2011-04-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110420002224/http://sciences.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/10/16/les-jumeaux-bogdanov-etrilles-par-le-cnrs/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="lexpress2015">{{cite news|url=https://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/les-bogdanov-reclamaient-1-million-ils-sont-condamnes-a-payer-2000-euros_1695746.html|title=Les Bogdanov réclamaient un million, ils sont condamnés à payer 2000 euros|work=[[L'Express]]|date=2015-07-02|access-date=2018-02-25|language=fr}}</ref>