It may not have been a hoax, but it looks like the brothers Bogdanov did manage to publish nonsense papers on theoretical physics in peer-reviewed journals. For a thorough look into the affair, read this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

There are a number of failures that have come to light. First is the process by which Ph.D.'s are granted at the University of Bourgogne. The review committee, by its own belated admission, did not contain anybody who truly understood what the Ph.D. theses were about. At the time Igor's thesis was in serious trouble and was given a way out: publish three or four papers in peer-reviewed journals and he would be given his Ph.D. This is a horrible cop-out, and it set up the circumstances under which Igor at least had a big incentive to get papers published quickly. That he managed to get these papers published with his brother points to the second big failure, that of the peer-review process. Again the papers were reviewed by scientists who did not really have the background to assess the validity. This has left a lot of egg on faces.

The article makes the point that theoretical physics has become so esoteric and removed from reality, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to establish the vital link between theoretical predictions and actual experiment to falsify the theory. Once you break that link between theory and experiment, you move out of the realm of science and into the world of blather.

Physicists did expose the nonsense in these papers, so in that sense the scientific process still works. But that's not the point. The peer-review process should have prevented these papers from ever being published.

Just when I thought that the dust was settling on the possible physics hoax, things are stirred up again. The discussion on the Ars Technica forum as well as in sci.physics.research seemed to be trending toward the consensus that the papers by Igor and Grichka Bogdanov are indeed nonsense. There's a lot hand-wringing over the peer review process, especially in the highly specialized fields such as quantum gravity and string theory. One of the Bogdanov papers was published in Annals of Physics, another in Classical and Quantum Gravity, both of which are generally well-respected and respectable physics journals. If their peer review process lets hoaxes through, then no publication is safe. Moreover, the Bogdanovs seem to have gotten Ph. D.'s in physics based on the work presented in the papers. This would also be a massive failure of the academic process and it would be sure to destroy the career of their advisor. So if this is a hoax, it's a pretty big deal.

Now the two brothers at the center of the controversy have responded to the allegations of a hoax and they vehemently deny that it is a one. They claim their work is valid, real research. Still, the evidence seems to be pointing to a hoax, since the Bogdanovs have been involved in plagiarism and tried to get Ph.D.'s on the quick in the following trial. According to Jacques Distler, the papers are complete nonsense. Interesting that if this nonsense, it should be coming from France, the country of silly post-modern vacuity. Has it really infected physics too?

I still don't know what to make of this. I hope their work is real, because as an erstwhile physicist myself I would be greatly saddened that even the supposedly hard science has now sunk to the level of the liberal arts with shoddy peer review. But since I am not even remotely competent to judge the work on its merits, I have no option but to wait for the scientific process to do its work and ferret out the truth. The work could be real, but wrong. There is no shame in that as long as it is not outrageously and obviously wrong as some people are claiming that it is. They could be kooky hecklers from the fringe. They could be misunderstood purveyors of a new insight.

I absolutely detest not knowing things. All I can do is wait.

Over on Ars Technica there's a discussion about a possible hoax perpetrated in the field of string theory. The scary thing is, it's turning out to be very hard to tell whether it's a hoax, shoddy scholarship or actual work. The physics and math is so esoteric that only a small handful of people seems capable of understanding it. Any quantum physicists in the house?