http://eventsymmetry.blogspot.com/2007/08/help-i-am-victim-of-plagiarism-ring-i.html
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Help! I am the victim of a Plagiarism ring
I know plagiarism is a very serious matter for people in academia but I must admit that I was more amused than shocked to be informed that I am a victim in a notorious case. If you follow this SPIRES search you should see one of my papers called "A White hole model of the big bang". Then there is another paper by some other authors that says it has been removed because it plagiarises mine. I managed to get hold of a copy of the offending paper and found that it does indeed have a section describing the equations of the Lemaitre-Tolman model which is a verbatim copy of a similar section of my paper. The rest of the paper is completely different.
Now the L-T model is standard stuff. In the section they copied from I had introduced the equations with no original material, so this example of plagiarism is just a
minor case of copyright violation rather than a sinister attempt to copy my original ideas. Apparently a number of other papers by the same authors have been withdrawn for the same reason and I don't know if the other cases are similar or more serious.
What makes this really funny for me is the number of times my ideas about event-symmetry have been reinvented without citation. Apparently that does not count as plagiarism because no sections of text or equations were copied and the authors may not have seen my work. This does not matter so much to me because physics is not my carear, but for young researchers trying to establish a name in academic circles it is a very serious business. Perhaps there should be some more realistic attempts to test the originality of ideas as part of the refereeing process (or before) to ensure that suitable credit is given where appropriate.
posted by phil at 6:33 AM
----------------------------------------------
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=fin+t+white+hole+model+big+bang&FORMAT=WWW&SEQUENCE=
SPIRES Image
HEP :: HEPNAMES :: INSTITUTIONS :: CONFERENCES :: EXPERIMENTS :: JOBS :: VIDEOS
Browse Author | Format: | Sort:
Paper 1 to 3 of 3
1) Energy Associated with Bianchi Type V10 Universe in Teleparallel Gravity.
Mustafa Salti (Middle East Tech. U., Ankara) . Jul 2006. 7pp.
e-Print: gr-qc/0607116
References | LaTeX(US) | LaTeX(EU) | Harvmac | BibTeX | Cited 7 times
Abstract and Postscript and PDF from arXiv.org (mirrors: au br cn de es fr il in it jp kr ru tw uk za aps lanl )
Bookmarkable link to this information
2) Relative Energy Associated with a White Hole Model of the Big Bang.
Figen Binbay, Irfan Acikgoz (Dicle U.) , Mustafa Salti (Middle East Tech. U., Ankara) . Jul 2006. 12pp.
his paper has been removed by arXiv administrators because it plagiarizes gr-qc/9803014, 'A White Hole Model of the Big Bang,' by Philip Gibbs.
e-Print: gr-qc/0607083
References | LaTeX(US) | LaTeX(EU) | Harvmac | BibTeX | Keywords | Cited 1 time
Abstract and Postscript and PDF from arXiv.org (mirrors: au br cn de es fr il in it jp kr ru tw uk za aps lanl )
Bookmarkable link to this information
3) A White hole model of the big bang.
Philip E. Gibbs . PEG-13-98, Mar 1998. 16pp.
email is philip.gibbs@weburbia.com.
e-Print: gr-qc/9803014
References | LaTeX(US) | LaTeX(EU) | Harvmac | BibTeX | Cited 2 times
Abstract and Postscript and PDF from arXiv.org (mirrors: au br cn de es fr il in it jp kr ru tw uk za aps lanl )
CERN Library Record
Bookmarkable link to this information
Format: | Sort:
Paper 1 to 3 of 3
About SPIRES :: SLAC :: SLAC Library :: Contact
SPIRES HEP is a joint project of SLAC, DESY & FNAL as well as the worldwide HEP community.
Mirrors: DESY (Germany), FNAL (US), IHEP (Russia), IPPP (UK), SLAC (US), YITP (Japan) LIPI (Indonesia);
spires@slac.stanford.edu
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
Saturday, August 25, 2007
A white hole model of the big bang
In the recent Turkish plagiarism scandal one of my papers entitled "A white hole model of the big bang" was partly copied. Since some people have been asking about it, I thought it would be an opportune moment to say something about the background to this paper and its recent implications.
In the mid 1990s I was quite an active contributor to the sci.physics usenet news groups. One of my minor claims to fame is that I created sci.physics.relativity (nobody is ever in the slightest bit impressed when I mention this). As a result of that, I became the editor of the usenet physics FAQ for a while and contributed several articles, especially about relativity and cosmology. One of the frequently asked types of question was variations on "Is the big bang a black hole?" so I wrote up an answer to it.
Part of the answer concerns the possibility of the big bang being inside a white hole. The correct answer is that the big bang could indeed be inside a white hole, but many lesser cosmologists did not believe it. An example of a more conservative answer to this question can be found at the astronomy cafe, but that answer is entirely wrong. I like to think that my physics FAQ article is partly responsible for a more enlightened view from the newest generation of cosmologists.
One thing I noted when writing the article was that there was not much literature looking at the universe as a white hole (although the book "Inhomogeneous cosmological models", Cambridge University Press 1997 by Andrzej Krasinski covers the area very well) so I decided to write a paper. That is how "A white hole model of the big bang" came about.
The aim of the paper was to construct a typical white hole solution for the universe as a special case of the Lemaitre-Tolman class of metrics and then study what the cosmic background radiation would look like if we were at a typical spot somewhere out from the centre. Of course if the white hole is sufficiently big then it looks locally like the standard FRW big bang model out to the observable horizon and there is no way we can tell the difference. But if the size scale of the white hole is just an order of magnitude bigger than the observable universe, then you would notice the difference as anomolous magnitudes for the low multipoles in the CMB. If the edge of the observable universe was currently close to the edge of the matter in the white hole then there would be a noticeable cool area in the direction closest to the edge. In the light of recent observations of the CMB (quadrupole anomaly, axis of evil, cold spot) I wonder if this idea should not be looked at again more seriously.
Needless to say my paper was rejected by the journal "Classical and Quantum Gravity". The referee admitted that he didn't even bother reading past the first section because he thought the whole idea was worthless. I am tempted to write an updated version which includes the cosmological constant and compares the results with observations that were not available when I wrote the current version. However, as an outsider of academia I am no longer able to submit papers to the e-print archive and I suspect that journals would still be unsympathetic to the concept, so perhaps it is not worth the effort. If anyone else wants to have a go, please dont forget to give me a little credit.
There is one other point that I should address. If the universe is a white hole, how would it look on large scales? According to classical GR, if a white hole exists it must always have existed. A white hole is just a time reverse black hole so just as a black hole cannot be destroyed, a white hole cannot be created. the white hole would have to have sat dormant for an infinite time into the past until our universe began. In the distant future the matter from the big bang will emerge from the white hole out past its horizon and the white hole will cease to exist leaving just the remnants of galaxies floating in the greatness of space.
The idea of a white hole that always existed is perhaps not very appealing, so it is good that quantum gravity allows for black holes to evaporate, Likewise a white hole can form from infalling matter. The black hole complementarity principle of Susskind means that a black hole can transform into a white hole. Classically they look very similar from the outside but only quantum mechanics allows them to switch roles. So now we can imagine a model of the universe in which matter falls into a very large black hole, then later matter emerges again from a white hole. The matter has not merely passed through because there would be past and future big bang singularities inside which are not connected.
Now if the origin of low entropy in the universe is the big bang singularity as many people suggest, then we would have to conclude that the matter that fell into the black hole is actually time reversed since the low entropy would be in the future. In other words, from the large scale outside view, the arrow of time would reverse. This is reminiscent of the famous Gold model of the universe in which the arrow of time is supposed to reverse before heading towards the big crunch. The Gold universe was popular for a while when Hawking took it up, but it is paradoxical because it is difficult to see why an advanced civilisation would not be able to protect itself and survive into the future when the arrow of time was reversed. It is hard to imagine how the laws of physics could allow for that. However, in the black/white hole model of the universe no such paradoxes apply. The reversal of time goes the other way. The arrows of time point apart like this
<-- -->
instead of towards each other like this
--> <-- so it is impossible to travel into a future where time is reversed and no paradoxes arise. So in conclusion, the white hole is a perfectly consistent model of our universe. Of course there are many other consistent models such as the famous eternal inflation scenarios, but the simplicity of the white hole model gives it some appeal. The white hole model is not easily falsifiable because a very large white hole cannot be distinguished from the standard model from within the observable universe, but a smaller white hole could account for anisotropies in the CMB and mass distributions so with luck there could already be evidence in its favour. posted by phil at 12:39 AM ---------------------------------------- http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9803014
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Title: A White Hole Model of the Big Bang
Authors: Philip Gibbs
(Submitted on 4 Mar 1998)
Abstract: A model of the universe as a very large white hole provides a useful alternative inhomogeneous theory to pit against the homogeneous standard FLRW big bang models. The white hole would have to be sufficiently large that we can fit comfortably inside the event horizon at the present time, so that the inhomogeneities of space-time are not in contradiction with current observational limits. A specific Lemaitre-Tolman model of a spherically symmetric non-rotating white hole with a few adjustable parameters is investigated. Comparison of calculated anisotropy in the Hubble flow and the CMB against observational limits constrain the parameter space. A Copernican principle would require that we are not too near the centre of the white hole. As an additional constraint this predicts a value of Omega between 0.9999 and 1.
Comments: 16 pages, postscript
Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
Report number: PEG-13-98
Cite as: arXiv:gr-qc/9803014v1
Submission history
From: Phil Gibbs [view email]
[v1] Wed, 4 Mar 1998 04:28:34 GMT (159kb)
Which authors of this paper are endorsers?
--------------------------------------------
