2007 Plagiarism Ring Affair
From Eureka
In August of 2007, the technology-oriented website Ars Technica[1] revealed that the arXiv was withdrawing a set of seventeen physics papers due to plagiarism. These papers had been written by a group of graduate students at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey. After detecting the plagiarism, METU faculty began a process which Ars Technica called "damage control", requesting that the Journal of High Energy Physics withdraw a fraudulent article,[2] and working with arXiv administrators to further the removal process.[3] The total number of withdrawals eventually rose to sixty-seven articles by fifteen authors,[4] at four Turkish institutions.[5]
Throughout this article, papers and eprints designated as "plagiarized" have been marked so by arXiv administrators or other sources external to EUREKA.
Contents[hide] |
Uncovery
At the beginning of August, Philip Gibbs noted on his blog that his 1998 paper "A White Hole Model of the Big Bang"[6] had been plagiarized in a 2006 preprint, "Relative Energy Associated with a White Hole Model of the Big Bang".[7] Describing himself as "more amused than shocked", Gibbs indicated that the material copied from his paper was merely his description of the Lemaitre-Tolman model, not Gibbs' own original work.[8] (He later explained the motivation and general outline of that work on his blog.[9])
Shortly thereafter, arXiv administrators withdrew a second set of eprints, this time a collection of papers from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (COMU) in Çanakkale, Turkey.
The journal Nature picked up the story in September,[5] and as the Chronicle of Higher Education blog summarized,
- 67 papers by 15 physicists at four Turkish universities were pulled after an examination of their content revealed that they "plagiarize the works of others or contain inappropriate levels of overlap with earlier articles." [...] Suspicions were apparently stoked when, during oral defenses of their dissertations last fall, [Mustafa] Salti and another student demonstrated a poor grasp of even the most basic of physics concepts. Professors at the university began to investigate the students' work and turned up several examples of plagiarized work by them, as well as by students and professors at three other Turkish universities — Dicle University, the University of Mersin, and Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University.[10]
Impact
Members of the physics community are still uncertain how severe the damage from this incident will transpire to be. Paul Ginsparg, a physics professor and central figure behind the arXiv, contended that the derivative nature of the plagiarized work minimized the harm it could bring about: "There's little effect on science, since the people who produce high quality work don't need to plagiarize, and the people who do need to plagiarize don't produce high enough quality work to affect anything."[3] Furthermore, since many of the papers dealt with a rather obscure topic, the Møller version of general relativity, few other physicists would be likely to examine the papers, Ginsparg told Nature.[5]
Others point to the as-yet-unknown extent of the METU-related fraud, and the possibility of other, similar deceptions currently unidentified. In addition, it is difficult to judge whether plagiarizing papers is as harmful as, for example, falsifying data. Since the former generally involves recycling notions which have already gained some degree of scientific acceptance, the primary harm resulting from such plagiarism may be that it furthers the careers of undeserving persons in a scientific community possessing only limited resources.[3]
List of Affected Journals
The following journals accepted work which the arXiv later identified as plagiarized.
- General Relativity and Gravitation (0705.2930 and gr-qc/0607104). Peter Woit says, "The situation of the second of these is really confusing, since according to the arXiv it plagiarizes a paper by a completely different group in India, one that the arXiv lists as having "excessive overlap" with an earlier paper by the Turkish plagiarists."[11]
Woit notes,
- There are also other papers by some of the same authors which the arXiv does not list as plagiarized (published in Nuclear Physics B, here, Classical and Quantum Gravity, here, International Journal of Modern Physics, here and here).[11]
Plagiarism at COMU
Shortly after the METU story broke, on 2007-08-22, arXiv administrators withdrew sixteen additional eprints, these authored by former graduate students at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (COMU) in Çanakkale, Turkey. These students, two of whom had shared a thesis advisor, appear to constitute a second Turkish plagiarism ring.
The eprints withdrawn by arXiv are as follows.
- Møller Energy-Momentum Complex in General Relativity for Higher Dimensional Universes. M. Aygun, S. Aygun, I. Yilmaz, H. Baysal, I. Tarhan. Published in Chinese Physics Letters, 24 (2007), 1821. Plagiarizes:
- I. Radinschi, Th. Grammenos. Energy distribution of the Einstein-Klein-Gordon system for a static spherically symmetric spacetime in (2+1)-dimensions International Journal of Modern Physics A21 (2006) 2853-2861
- Elias C. Vagenas. Energy Distribution in 2d Stringy Black Hole Backgrounds. International Journal of Modern Physics A18 (2003) 5781-5794
- On the Energy-Momentum Problem in Static Einstein Universe. Sezgin Aygun, Ismail Tarhan, Husnu Baysal. Published: Chinese Physics Letters 24 (2) (2007), 355. Plagiarizes:
- M. Sharif, Tasnim Fatima. Energy-Momentum Distribution: A Crucial Problem in General Relativity. International Journal of Modern Physics A20 (2005) 4309
- Energy and Momentum of Bell-Szekeres Space-time in Moller Prescription. Sezgin Aygun. Published: Acta Physica Polonica B38 (2007) 73-80. Plagiarizes:
- Th. Grammenos, I. Radinschi. Energy Distribution in a Schwarzschild-like Spacetime.
- Ragab M. Gad. Energy Distribution of a Stationary Beam of Light. Astrophys.Space Sci. 295 (2005) 451-458
- The Colliding Plane Wave and Energy-Momentum Problems in General Relativity and Teleparallel Gravity. Sezgin Aygun, Ismail Tarhan, Husnu Baysal, Melis Aygun. Plagiarizes:
- Ragab M. Gad. Energy and Momentum densities of cosmological models, with equation of state $\rho=\mu$, in general relativity and teleparallel gravity
- Yu-Xiao Liu, Zhen-Hua Zhao, Jie Yang, Yi-Shi Duan. The total energy-momentum of the universe in teleparallel gravity.
- Ragab M. Gad. Energy and momentum associated with a Static Axially Symmetric Vacuum Space-Time. Modern Physics Letters A19 (2004) 1847-1854
- T. Vargas Auccalla. The energy of the universe in teleparallel gravity. General Relativity and Gravitation, 36 (2004) 1255
- Alexander Feinstein. Penrose Limits, the Colliding Plane Wave Problem and the Classical String Backgrounds
- V. C. de Andrade, L. C. T. Guillen, J. G. Pereira. Gravitational Energy-Momentum Density in Teleparallel Gravity Physical Review Letters 84 (2000) 4533-4536
- The Energy of Marder Space-Time in Moller Prescription. Sezgin Aygun, Husnu Baysal, Ismail Tarhan. Plagiarizes:
- Gamal G.L. Nashed. Charged Axially Symmetric Solution, Energy and Angular Momentum in Tetrad Theory of Gravitation. Int. J. Mod. Phys. Lett. A 21 (2006), 3181
- Gamal G.L. Nashed. General Spherically Symmetric Non Singular Black Hole Solutions in Teleparallel Theory of Gravitation. Physical Review D66 (2002) 064015
- Anirudh Pradhan, S. K. Srivastav, R. S. Singh. Tilted Bianchi Type V Bulk Viscous Cosmological Models with Varying $\Lambda$-Term
- Autoplagiarizes:
- gr-qc/0505078 gr-qc/0607109 gr-qc/0511095 gr-qc/0607110 gr-qc/0603044 gr-qc/0603027 gr-qc/0607126 gr-qc/0607116 gr-qc/0502060 gr-qc/0511030 gr-qc/0601141 gr-qc/0606022 gr-qc/0512080 gr-qc/0601070 gr-qc/0608014 gr-qc/0508018 gr-qc/0603108 gr-qc/0607102 gr-qc/0606028 gr-qc/0607082 gr-qc/0603063 gr-qc/0608050 gr-qc/0607089 gr-qc/0607095 gr-qc/0607011 gr-qc/0607083 gr-qc/0502043
- The Energy Momentum Problem in Teleparallel Gravity For Bianchi Type II-VIII-IX Universes. Sezgin Aygun, Melis Aygun, Ismail Tarhan. Autoplagiarism.
- Energy And Momentum Associated With Bianchi Type Universes. Sezgin Aygun, Melis Aygun, Ismail Tarhan. Plagiarizes:
- Elias C. Vagenas. Energy Distribution in 2d Stringy Black Hole Backgrounds. International Journal of Modern Physics A18 (2003) 5781-5794
- Elias C. Vagenas. Energy distribution in a BTZ black hole spacetime. International Journal of Modern Physics D14 (2005) 573-586
- Elias C. Vagenas. Energy distribution in the dyadosphere of a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole in Moller's prescription Modern Physics Letters A21 (2006) 1947
- Elias C. Vagenas. mass of a radiating charged particle in Einstein's universe. Modern Physics Letters A19 (2004) 213-222
- Th. Grammenos. Energy and Momentum Distributions of the Magnetic Solution to (2+1) Einstein-Maxwell Gravity. Modern Physics Letters A20 (2005) 1741-1751
- I. Radinschi, Th. Grammenos. Energy distribution of the Einstein-Klein-Gordon system for a static spherically symmetric spacetime in (2+1)-dimensions. International Journal of Modern Physics A21 (2006) 2853-2861
- K. S. Virbhadra. Janis-Newman-Winicour and Wyman solutions are the same International Journal of Modern Physics A12 (1997) 4831-4836
- Energy Momentum Complexes For Bianchi Type II-VIII-IX Universes. Sezgin Aygun, Melis Aygun, Ismail Tarhan. Plagiarizes:
- Energy Momentum Localization for Bianchi I-III-V-VI0 Universe in Teleparallel Gravity. Sezgin Aygun, Melis Aygun, Ismail Tarhan. Plagiarizes:
- S. S. Xulu. Møller energy of the nonstatic spherically symmetric metrics. Astrophysics and Space Science 283 (2003) 23-32
- Energy Momentum of Marder Universe in Teleparallel gravity. Sezgin Aygun, Husnu Baysal, Ismail Tarhan. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, (2007). Plagiarizes:
- Anirudh Pradhan, S. K. Srivastav, R. S. Singh. Tilted Bianchi Type V Bulk Viscous Cosmological Models with Varying $\Lambda$-Term
- Yu-Xiao Liu, Zhen-Hua Zhao, Jie Yang, Yi-Shi Duan. The total energy-momentum of the universe in teleparallel gravity
- Topological defect solutions in the spherically symmetric space-time admitting conformal motion. Ihsan Yilmaz, Melis Aygun, Sezgin Aygun. Published: General Relativity and Gravitation, 37 (2005) 2093-2104. Plagiarizes:
- Anirudh Pradhan, G. S. Khadekar, M. K. Mishra, S. Kumbhare. Higher Dimensional Strange Quark Matter Coupled to the String Cloud with Electromagnetic Field Admitting One Parameter Group of Conformal Motion. Chinese Physics Letters Vol. 24, No 10 (2007)
- hep-th/0505013
- On the Energy Momentum in Bianchi Type I-III-V-VI0 Space-Time. Sezgin Aygun, Melis Aygun, Ismail Tarhan. Plagiarizes:
- Elias C. Vagenas. Energy Distribution in 2d Stringy Black Hole Backgrounds. International Journal of Modern Physics A18 (2003) 5781-5794
- Elias C. Vagenas. Energy distribution in a BTZ black hole spacetime. International Journal of Modern Physics D14 (2005) 573-586
- Elias C. Vagenas. Energy distribution in the dyadosphere of a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole in Moller's prescription. Modern Physics Letters A21 (2006) 1947
- Elias C. Vagenas. Effective mass of a radiating charged particle in Einstein's universe. Modern Physics Letters A19 (2004) 213-222
- Th. Grammenos. Energy and Momentum Distributions of the Magnetic Solution to (2+1) Einstein-Maxwell Gravity. Modern Physics Letters A20 (2005) 1741-1751
- I. Radinschi, Th. Grammenos. Energy distribution of the Einstein-Klein-Gordon system for a static spherically symmetric spacetime in (2+1)-dimensions. International Journal of Modern Physics A21 (2006) 2853-2861
- K. S. Virbhadra. Janis-Newman-Winicour and Wyman solutions are the same. International Journal of Modern Physics A12 (1997) 4831-4836
- S. S. Xulu. Moller energy of the nonstatic spherically symmetric metrics. Astrophysics and Space Science 283 (2003) 23-32
- K. S. Virbhadra. Naked singularities and Seifert's conjecture Physical Review D60 (1999) 104041
- Energy Momentum Localization in Marder Space-Time. Sezgin Aygun, Melis Aygun, Ismail Tarhan. Plagiarizes:
- Energy and Momentum of The Szekeres Universes in Tele-parallel Gravity. Sezgin Aygun, Ismail Tarhan, Husnu Baysal. Plagiarizes:
- Ragab M. Gad. Energy and Momentum densities of cosmological models, with equation of state $\rho=\mu$, in general relativity and teleparallel gravity
- Ragab M. Gad. Energy and Momentum Densities Associated with Solutions Exhibiting Directional Type Singularities
- Ragab M. Gad. Møller Energy-Momentum Complex of a Static Axially Symmetric Vacuum Space-Time
- Energy Distribution in Szekeres Type I and II Space Times. Sezgin Aygun, Melis Aygun, Ismail Tarhan. Published: Acta Physica Polonica B37 (2006) 2781-2794. Autoplagiarism.
- Magnetized Quark and Strange Quark Matter in the Spherical Symmetric Space-Time Admitting Conformal Motion. Can Aktas, Ihsan Yilmaz. Published: General Relativity and Gravitation, Vol 39 (2007) 849-862. Plagiarizes:
- J.D. Barrow, R. Maartens, C.G. Tsagas. Cosmology with inhomogeneous magnetic fields. Physics Reports 449 (2007) 131-171
- A. Perez Martinez, H. Perez Rojas, H. J. Mosquera Cuesta, M. Boligan, M. G. Orsaria. Quark stars and quantum-magnetically induced collapse. International Journal of Modern Physics D14 (2005) 1959
- T. Harko, K. S. Cheng. Maximum mass and radius of strange stars in the linear approximation of the EOS
- D. Gondek-Rosinska, E. Gourgoulhon, P. Haensel. Are rotating strange quark stars good sources of gravitational waves? Astronomy & Astrophysics 412 (2003) 777-790
- R Sharma, S Karmakar, S Mukherjee. Maximum mass of a cold compact star. International Journal of Modern Physics D15 (2006) 405-418
- Efrain J. Ferrer, Vivian de la Incera. Paramagnetism in color superconductivity and compact stars. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 40 (2007)
- Masaru Shibata, Yuk Tung Liu, Stuart L. Shapiro, Branson C. Stephens. Magnetorotational collapse of massive stellar cores to neutron stars: Simulations in full general relativity. Physical Review D74 (2006) 104026
References
- ↑ Ars Technica website, accessed 2007-08-23
- ↑ The arXiv entry may be viewed here, as of 2007-08-23; the paper was removed from the arXiv, and after some delay from the Journal of High Energy Physics also.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 John Timmer, "Plagiarism and falsified data slip into the scientific literature: a report" (2007-08-07), in Ars Technica. Accessed 2007-08-23.
- ↑ 67 admin withdrawals, arXiv. Accessed 2007-09-07.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Geoff Brumfiel, Turkish physicists face accusations of plagiarism Nature News (subscription required), 2007-09-05. Accessed 2007-09-07.
- ↑ Philip Gibbs. A White Hole Model of the Big Bang, 1998-03-04.
- ↑ Figen Binbay, Irfan Acikgoz, Mustafa Salti. Relative Energy Associated with a White Hole Model of the Big Bang, 2006-07-20. Withdrawn from arXiv on 2007-07-26.
- ↑ Philip Gibbs. Help! I am the victim of a Plagiarism ring. 2007-08-01.
- ↑ Philip Gibbs. A white hole model of the big bang. Event Symmetry 2007-08-25.
- ↑ Aisha Labi, Turkish Professors Uncover Plagiarism in Papers Posted on Physics Server, Chronicle of Higher Education blog, 2007-09-06. Accessed 2007-09-07.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Peter Woit. Massive plagiarism scandal, Not Even Wrong 2007-08-23.
