Tuesday, November 5
Physics bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?
The story - in brief - is that there have been numerous changes of the theses subjects, writing and rewriting again and again; attempts to get published in various journals; changes of supervisors and referees; internecine struggles between different institutions of science; political pressures applied from various directions, and other dramatic events that - if fully chronicled - would make a great movie! (Daniel has promised to write a short summary of the essential points that we will present as soon as it arrives.)
The sociological milieu of the affair is rich in color and personalities. The Bogdanovs have been described as "charismatic" and and "persuasive." One of the juicier details is that the Bogdanov twins actually have FANS - scores of beautiful, nubile young women - who attend their seminars thereby delighting the other physicists - distracting them from theoretical to applied pysics. The Bogdanovs have political cachet - even the support of the French Minister of education. In addition to this, because of their prominence, the Bogdanov brothers have brought various publishing houses into the fray, making for a general circus-like atmosphere in the normally subdued and monkly Ivory towers of science.
