Bogdanov Affair - Internet Discussions

Internet Discussions

In addition to a few articles in print media, the Bogdanov Affair has been discussed extensively in various newsgroups, webpages and blogs; the Bogdanov brothers have often participated in the discussions, sometimes using pseudonyms or represented by friends acting as proxies. They have used these methods to defend their work and sometimes to insult their critics, among them the Nobel prize recipient Georges Charpak.

In October 2002, the Bogdanovs released an email containing apparently supportive statements by Laurent Freidel, then a visiting professor at the Perimeter Institute. Soon after, Freidel denied writing any such remarks, telling the press that he had forwarded a message containing that text to a friend. The Bogdanovs then attributed the quoted passages to Freidel, who said, "I'm very upset about that because I have received e-mail from people in the community asking me why I've defended the Bogdanov brothers. When your name is used without your consent, it's a violation."

At the start of the controversy in the moderated group sci.physics.research, Igor Bogdanov denied that their published papers were a hoax, but when asked precise questions from physicists Steve Carlip and John Baez regarding mathematical details in the papers, failed to convince any other participants that these papers had any real scientific value. New York Times reporter George Johnson described reading through the debate as "like watching someone trying to nail Jell-O to a wall", for the Bogdanovs had "developed their own private language, one that impinges on the vocabulary of science only at the edges."