The DNS has the following entry for phys-maths.edu.lv
domain: phys-maths.edu.lv
descr: International Institute of Mathematical Physics
admin-c: 23391-LUMII
tech-c: 23391-LUMII
nserver: DNS1.SUPREMESERVER11.COM
nserver: DNS2.SUPREMESERVER11.COM
changed: dns-reg@nic.lv 20031201
source: LUMII
person: BOGDANOFF IGOR
address: none
phone: 33608250825
e-mail: igor.bogdanov@wanadoo.fr
nic-hdl: 23391-LUMII
source: LUMII
That address now hosts a web-site for the Mathematical Center of Riemannian Cosmology, which mysteriously seems devoted to the work of the Bogdanovs. The newsgroup fr.sci.physique has all sorts of threads devoted to the Bogdanovs. In one posting by the brothers, where they give their e-mail address as “igor.bogdanoff@phys-maths.edu.lv”, they helpfully explain that the University of Riga set up the site for them and that’s why it is in the Lithuanian DNS.
One problem: Riga is in Latvia, not Lithuania.
I take this kind of personally because, besides being an American citizen, I also have a Latvian passport (the Latvian version of my name is “Voits”). My father was born in Riga, and he and his parents became exiles at the time of the Soviet occupation starting during World War II. I’ve visited Riga several times (including a visit to the university), first soon after independence on a trip with my father while he was still alive. Riga is a beautiful city, with the downtown not much changed since before the war. In recent years the old city and much of the downtown have been elegantly renovated, and Riga is now once again a large, vibrant city with great restaurants, hotels, shops, etc. And now it has an International Institute of Mathematical Physics.
Dear Fabien,
Just a precision. You write that our quantum group paper is in our book. But if you compare the “annexes” of Avant le Big Bang with the paper itself, you will have to admit that only a short fragment of it was published in the book. In fact, we published this extract (our theorem 3.3.2) much more as an example of a scientific paper (which may be of interest for a large audience). The objective was not to be understood by specialists of quantum groups theory (many readers said that they liked it the same way they like some creation of modern art.). But at the end, the only thing that matters is the “impression” left by a book. In the case Avant le Big Bang laks of precision or contains some mistakes, we hope that grace to you and others, we will be able to correct it.
I/G
The intersection is not the empty set since your quantum group paper IS in your “large audience” book ! When I say you do not follow the scientific method I include a lack of intellectual rigor which is a minimum requirement even in a large audience book.
Dear Fabien Besnard,
Thank you for your response which has the advantage to be honest.
But now : how can you compare a quantum group paper with a large audience book? From our view, the intersection between these two categories is really an empty set. A scientific paper is written for experts; by definition, it requires a high level of technicity and very few readers are able to grasp the real meaning of it. At the opposite, a book is not written for experts, even not for specialists of scientists : it is meant to be read and understood by a large audience. Before the Big Bang was written as a large audience book. Not as a scientific paper. Indeed you are right when you say that it does not follow the scientific method. Of course not. But it still reflects a certain “state of the Universe” by an other path. It may contain some mistakes, erros or misquotings (Woit, Schreiber); but at the end “something” good may remain; So we propose that instead of burning the whole, you make the effort to look after this tiny “something” that may be hidden somewhere between the pages.
Thank you for your attention
I/G
To IGB : it is not the place to discuss about that, but since I have been attacked at several places on this weblog, I will made one last comment : I began to read your article but then I read your book, and there I found many evidences that you do not follow the scientific method (to say the least). So it was pointless to go on reading about bi-crossproducts. Another important thing is that I realized that if ever I turned out saying that just one line of calculation was right in your paper, you would go everywhere misquoting me, perhaps making me one of your supporters in your next book !
Tell us, dear Fabien Besnard, how you can follow such a line of de-reasoning? You see, since you wrote your article, you got involved in a matter that is obviously beyond your field of expertise. You even wrote us (May 20,2004) : ” I had a glance on your “bicrossproduct article”. Since I do not know this matter, I have to refer to Majid and it may take some time.” You never got back to us. Following your own statement (since you admit in you letter that you do not understand our work in quantum groups) on what basis do you claim that this work should be “empty”?
Obviously, your reaction is neither “objective” nor scientific.
Thank you for your attention,
IGB
By the way, I wonder how the people in the
universities in Hong Kong feel about an
address like http://th-phys.edu.hk/? Has
anyone asked them?
Tell me, dear Ark, how someone who “thinks” can still use such a line of reasoning as “A is a crank and go unnoticed, B has been caught, so I will defend B” ? I never heard of the people you speak of (Tiller et al) so they don’t bother me. But now each morning I hear an advertisement for Bogdanov’s book on my favourite radio station. This is enough for me not to turn my attention away from B&B at the moment…
Nobody knows for sure why the world seems to be 4-dimensional. Anthropic principle is one pseudo-explanation. That I have five fingers on my hand, and one is evidently different than the other is another “explanation”, as good as any other one, including one with four different kind of numbers.
Some people think, some don’t. Some use their cerebral cortex, some don’t. Some have souls, some, evidently, don’t. That’s normal.
Now, to just shift your ( YBM ( pseudo of Besnard))attention to a slightly different subject let me quote from a book by three American “scientists”. In fact I invite all of you to visit my web page
http:/quantumfuture.net/cass/bogdanov3.htm
There you will find:
Happy reading!
ark
« YBM ( pseudo of Besnard) »
The last line of defense : pretend that everyone and his brother questioning their work is in fact one person. It is so desperatly ridiculous (anyone familiar with fr.sci.* would know) that I wonder if I should deny.
BTW, Mr Woit, did you know that in their book they pretend (sqrt(5)+1)/2 is transcendental ? And that the Universe has four dimensions because there are four kind of number (integers, rationnals, reals and complexes) ? Therefore, in their spirit, I aprove the following statement :
if the golden ratio is not albebraic, then I am Fabien Besnard (and the Pope as well)
Dear Peter,
We do not understand how someone (like you) who is very familiar with internet technics cannot make any basic difference between a post coming from us and a message coming from someone else. Instead of checking the situation with us you immediatly write an article on it, prentending that you got a message from us hidden behind a “double pseudo”. Once for good : Alexandre Fau is NOT a pseudo of Bogdanoff! We do not know this person, we never met him, but we sent him an email yesterday. He must have sent you another email and we hope that you have a clearer view of the situation by now. If we want to write you, we do not need to hide ourselves behind anyone. We do it directly, as we wrote you this morning. Our advise is that you should not listen too much people like Besnard or YBM ( pseudo of Besnard). There are much more serious things to do and other important problems to solve in the Universe.
Best regards
I/G
Hi Peter,
I agree that misquoting was bad and you did the right thing pointing it out. As for problems “at the top levels” – well …. It all started long ago with the “publish and perish” ideology and research grants and money tied to politics. I decided to try to create an “alternative research institution”. Whether it will fly or fall – we will see. For a couple of years I was a v-ce director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Uni Wroclaw, Poland. So I was witnessing how the level of the research deteriorates with the institution of plans and grants. It deteriorated to the extent that I decided to leave organized science completely. Ambitious and/or original projects have little chance to get support. In the US we have, in addition, the military complex that intercepts what is in their field of interests, which additionally severely restricts the freedom of research.
These are just few thoughts that are on my mind right now. I wish you success in your mission!
ark
Hi Ark,
Actually I’m not spending my time criticizing the scientific activities of the Bogdanovs. They’re not much of a problem for the scientific community. Much more serious is the situation at the top levels of the US (and other country’s) scientific establishment in particle theory, and it is that problem that I have been trying to do something about, despite warnings from many that it is unwise of me to challenge powerful interests.
On the other hand, if they are going to do things like publish books misquoting me and send me e-mail purporting to be from someone other than who it is really from, I’m going to use this forum to tell about this activity, and, yes, ridicule it.
If only to amuse you (as apparently some of you guys has nothing better to do than follow Igor and Grichka, why don’t you choose Thomas Bearden or Myron Evans, with connections to US DOD and DOE agencies?):
It does not matter when the server is – if it is convenient to have a server in Thailand – it will be in Thailand. The cheapest servers are certainly in US, but due to Bush Reich lies, some organizations do not like to have servers in US. While some do.
Notice that International Institute of Mathematical Physics has updated its web page at
http://th-phys.edu.hk/
( I did it) though it is still in status nascendi, so it will have its reasonable web site in due time. For the time it is just a “project”, even though officially registered, yet it will take about a year to give it a shape.
If you wish to have me help you to find american targets for your attacks (because France has been already used), I will certainly be willing to help you. If you are really so moved by the idea that physics publications should all make sense, and all mistakes should be ridiculed – just try to read carefully, checking every formula and every sentence, all papers in arxiv.org. 80% of these papers will be nosnsensical, and can be easily ridiculed – if one is determined to do so, and has nothing better to do.
ark
There is nothing “mysterious” with the existence of this website : it has been legally registered and it is ruled from Paris. So what? Where is the problem? Why bother any further?
“Mathematical Center of Riemannian Cosmomogy”
“Cosmomogy” is the name ! Ridiculous and nonexistant : the place where you consider the consequences on the Universe of the hypothesis that the golden number is transcendant ?
YBM wrote in message news:…
> Tiens, puisque vous êtes réveillés, Peter Woit vient de mettre
> en ligne un résumé de votre pitoyable tentative d’inventer encore
> un Institut International de Mathématiques tout entier dévolu
> à votre gloire :
>
> http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/archives/000045.html
>
> Comment pouvez-vous être si maladroits ?
Re bonjour,
A la suite d’une conférence faite à Riga (2001), les responsables de l’informatique de l’Université nous ont proposé de créer un site. Comme il fallait bien lui donner un nom, nous avons pensé à Mathematical Center of Riemannian Cosmomogy, qui reflète exactement notre domaine de recherche.
Il y a environ un an, nous avons créé les quelques pages correspondant à nos orientations de travail, papiers, etc. et le site a été créé à l’automne 2003. Comme tous les autres sites, il est administré par l’institution suivante :
University of Latvia
Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science
Department of Network Solutions (DNS)
Rainis Boulevard 29
Riga LV-1459
Voilà. Depuis 2001, nous ne sommes plus jamais retournés à Riga et n’entretenons aucun lien particulier avec ce pays. Notre seul lien tient au nom de domaine qui nous a été attribués et que nous opérons depuis la France.
Merci de ton attention,
Amicalement,
I/G
Oops that’s Estonia. Guess I was thinking of Mikhail Tal? 🙂
Paul Keres!
Also amusing is how some of the links on phys-maths.edu.lv to the Bogdanov’s papers and *.gif picture files, all appear to be on an expired account at http://www.mydocsonline.com
These guys have been doing a piss poor job of even trying to perpetuate their own hoax. Probably even a high school computer whiz kid can do a better job!
Doing a “whois” search on the networksolutions.com website shows that the address is hosted by a web hosting company called “Ancient Media” at an IP address in South Carolina.
It appears the machine hosting phys-maths.edu.lv is not even physically in Lithuania nor Latvia. A traceroute reading to phys-maths.edu.lv looks like it’s hosted in north america. If you do a traceroute to machines located physically in Lithuania (.lt) or Latvia (.lv), you’ll typically get longer delay times that are characteristic of transatlanic connection times to eastern europe or Russia. Even America -> England connections, shows the transatlanic delay.
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