Bogdanov Affair - Media Involvement

Media Involvement

At the start of the controversy in 2002, numerous articles on the subject were published in worldwide media, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Economist, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as Pravda, Die Zeit and Le Monde.

In 2002, the Bogdanovs launched a new weekly TV show Rayons X (X Rays) on French public channel France 2. In August 2004, they presented a 90-minute special cosmology program in which they introduced their theory among other cosmological scenarios. They were also frequently invited to numerous TV talk shows to promote their book. The French mainstream media, in both the press and on the Internet, covered the renewed controversy to some extent; media outlets that have reported upon it include Europe 1, Acrimed, and Ciel et Espace.

In 2004, the Bogdanovs published a commercially successful popular science book, Avant Le Big Bang (Before the Big Bang), based on a simplified version of their theses, where they also presented their point of view about the affair. Both the book and the Bogdanovs' television shows have been criticized for elementary scientific inaccuracies. Critics cite examples from Avant Le Big Bang including a statement that the "golden number" φ (Phi) is transcendental, which the Bogdanovs allege to be an editorial misprint; an assumption that the limit of a decreasing sequence is always zero; and that the expansion of the Universe implies that the planets of the Solar System have grown farther apart.

In October 2004, a journalist from Ciel et Espace interviewed Shahn Majid of the University of London about his report on Grichka Bogdanov's thesis. Majid said that the French version of his report on Grichka's thesis was "an unauthorized translation partially invented by the Bogdanovs." In one sentence, the English word "interesting" was translated as the French "important." A "draft construction" became "la première construction " ("the first construction"). Elsewhere, an added word demonstrated, according to Majid, that "Bogdanov does not understand his own draft results." Majid also described more than ten other modifications of meaning, each one biased towards "surestimation outrancière"—"outrageous over-estimation." Majid said that his original report described a "very weak" student who nevertheless demonstrated "an impressive amount of determination to obtain a doctorate." Later, Majid claimed in a Usenet post that, in an addendum to Avant Le Big Bang, Grichka intentionally misquoted Majid's opinion on the way this interview had been transcribed.

Additionally, in the same addendum, a critical analysis of their work made by post-doc Urs Schreiber, and affirmed by the Bogdanovs as "very accurate", was included with the exception of the concluding remark "Just to make sure: I do not think that any of the above is valid reasoning", thus inverting the meaning from criticism into ostensible support. Moreover, a comment by physicist Peter Woit written as, "It's certainly possible that you have some new worthwhile results on quantum groups", was translated as "Il est tout à fait certain que vous avez obtenu des résultats nouveaux et utiles dans les groupes quantiques" ("It is completely certain that you have obtained new worthwhile results on quantum groups") and published by the Bogdanovs in the addendum of their book.

In December 2004, the Bogdanovs sued Ciel et Espace for defamation over the publication of a critical article entitled "The Mystification of the Bogdanovs". In September 2006, the case was dismissed after the Bogdanovs missed court deadlines; they were ordered to pay 2500 euros to the magazine's publisher to cover its legal costs. There was never a substantive ruling on whether or not the Bogdanovs had been defamed.