Talk:Michael Atiyah

Controversy

Professor C.K. Raju, an Indian physicist charged Atiyah of plagiarizing or claiming inappropriate credit to some of his previously published ideas. After ascertaining from three independent experts, that the complaint is valid, Society for Scientific Values (SSV) contacted Atiyah for his views. Atiyah wrote to SSV that while he has not published anything on the subject under question, he had lectured on the subject without being aware of Raju's publications. Now that he is aware of them, he assured that he would certainly cite them if and when he publishes something on the subject. SSV being aware of a prima-facie case of plagariasm has since placed the views of the two parties on the SSV website. This section was removed by user"fowler" without giving any valid reason. Please note that this issue (plagiarizing" has been peer reviewed by a Society for Scientific Values ( hence WP:RS) and thus and entirely valid edit. This is also keeping with BLP since the view of Atiyah is also stated in the section. I would request User:fowler to re-instate the deleted paragraph.-Bharatveer (talk) 05:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)-Bharatveer (talk) 05:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I have re-added the case with elaboration of charges as well as required references.-Bharatveer (talk) 07:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid, it doesn't established plagiarism by a long shot. Atiyah is a famous mathematician who gives many talks. The field of retarded differential equations and the origin of quantum mechanics has many contributors; Raju is not the only one, and his contributions are in physics journals, not in mathematics ones. Most likely, Atiyah read one of the papers in the mathematics journals, such as: Template:Harvard reference That paper references two papers by Raju, but they are only two of 39. In addition, that papers mentions Raju nowhere by name, although it does mention many others. Here is an example:

"In the last years many papers, in particular of ’t Hooft [35], [36], [37] and [38], have described a possible way out from some of the mysterious features of quantum mechanics.... In this way, towards the end of eighties, the fractal space-time physics and the theory of the scale relativity was introduced by Ord [21], Svozil [34], Nottale [20] and El Naschie [9], all of them independently but based on the original objections of A. Einstein and D. Bohm, as well as a fractal space-filling curve proposal by Feynman, see [10]."

Raju, in contrast, is mentioned by number: "The physical consequences of these differences are explained at length in [27]." Michael Atiyah is one of great mathematicians of the last 50 years; his work on K-Theory with F. Hirzebruch, on the simple solution of the Hopf Invariant One problem with Frank Adams, on the Index Theorem for Elliptic Operators with I.M. Singer and Graeme Segal, on the Lefschetz Fixed Point Formulas with Raoul Bott, on Heat Equation Methods in Index Theory with Vijay Kumar Patodi, and on Gauge-field theory and the Topology of 4-manifolds with Simon Donaldson, Frances Kirwan and Nigel Hitchin is head and shoulders above any future "fame" he likely to gain by "plagiarizing," at the age of 79, the work of a little-known physicist, C. K. Raju. Besides Atiyah has a long history of collaboration with Indian mathematicians, including M. S. Narasimhan and C. S. Seshadri (in addition to Patodi).

Finally, there is no truth to the statement that Atiyah refused to acknowledge Raju's contribution in later published work. The letter to the editor, received Dec 26, 2006 (Notices of the AMS, 2007), (page 2), written by the organizers of Atiyah's talk in Lincoln, already advertises, with Atiyah's approval, some papers of Raju. There is no reason why this page should provide publicity for an uncertain accusation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:45, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

And what controversy are we talking about? A Google Advanced Search on "C. K. Raju" and "Michael Atiyah" turns up 16 sites, of which only 12 are relevant; of these, except for the AMS Notices letter mentioned above, all are dubious Indian blog sites, including C. K. Raju's. If you add "controversy" to the search, then only four websites turn up, all Indian blog sites. I note too that not a single mathematician or physicist of repute in India, such as the ones at the Tata Institute in Bombay or the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, has said anything even remotely in support of Raju's claim.

C. K. Raju incidentally is the same nutjob who has been claiming that calculus was invented in India and, through Jesuit contacts, made its way to Europe, where Newton and Leibniz, both "discovered it" and suppressed the evidence of the transmission! I've already dealt with this stuff on the Indian mathematics page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Fowler is requested to restrict his "nutjob"reference to himself. The controversy sections says that an INDEPENDENT Scientific community Society for Scientific Values (SSV) , after PEER REVIEW found out that this plagiarism charge had substance. They placed this case in their official website under Section Cases of misconduct investigated by SSV.Please see

http://www.scientificvalues.org/cases.html .Now User:fowler , please tell me who elevated you to the post of JUDGE in this case and what is your eligibilty.

The Question here is this , under what section of WP rules is this being deleted? It cannot be, in any case due to WP:RS, since this is directly taken from an OFFICIAL website of an INDEPENDENT scientific community and they themselves have had this case PEER REVIEWED.-Bharatveer (talk) 12:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Raju, incidentally, has a history of accusing prominent people of plagiarism. Not content with only Atiyah, Newton, and Leibniz in his list, here he is talking about Einstein: "Many scholars before me have questioned Einstein's understanding of the theory of relativity and I would also say that whether Einstein copied the idea from somebody else belonging to that era is a serious probability," says Raju... Relaxing at his favourite joint, the Triveni Kala Sangam canteen, the Head of Centre for Computer Science, MCRP University, Bhopal, calls Einstein "a habitual plagiarist," often accompanied by a fervent turning of pages to exact paragraphs that hold his arguments." From The Hindu newspaper, 2003. Should we also have little sections on Raju in the Newton, Leibniz, and Einstein pages? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I love this! Apparently, he has also been accusing his fellow-theorists of the "Calculus originated in Kerala" school, George Joseph and Dennis Almeida, of plagiarism! From Little India News: "However, C K Raju, a fellow at the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, who claims he once collaborated with Almeida, told the Hindu that he made the discovery (that Calculus originated in Kerala) and the two British researchers gained access to his unpublished work during the course of his collaboration with them." (Joseph and Almeida are both from Kerala!) According to the same report, "Joseph denounced the plagiarism allegations as an effort at 'seeking publicity.'" This is getting to be fun! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:31, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

And here is a fatuous post by C. K. Raju, where he is repeats tired news, known since the 1930s, when John Maynard Keynes stumbled upon Newton's papers in a Cambridge bookshop, but adds a conspiracy angle, that modern scholars are trying to suppress publication of Newton's hidden manuscripts. The post brought this reponse from the normally mild D. T. Whiteside, late Professor of the History of Mathematics and Exact Sciences at Cambridge, and the author of the 8 volume, Mathematical Papers of Isaac Newton. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Was just looking through this page. Although F&f has amply demonstrated his ignorance of this subject matter (see his fatuous posts below), it appears that there are some open ends left here. I would like to correct these just for the record although F&f's claims here have already been judged irrelevant to the debate below. As usual, F&f's allegations above rely on incomplete research. F&f quotes Joseph as saying that Raju was seeking publicity. To the contrary, the HT report on Raju's website makes it clear that it was Joseph who was seeking publicity. Joseph approached the media publicizing his claim without first publishing his work in either a journal or a book. This is clear since the media articles reporting this, refer to neither. As is clear from Raju's website, Raju had, in fact, already published his work in his book on the "Cultural Foundations of Mathematics" but did not approach the media. Who was seeking undue publicity? Unfortunately, as the HT correction referred to above showed (The Telegraph, London also withdrew the story from its website), this seems to have backfired.

158.144.51.126 (talk) 14:07, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Whatever User;Fowler would like to believe. C.K.Raju does not merely "accuse" he has written books to establish his theories. It is indeed very very interesting to know that DENNIS ALMEIDA had to resign from his university job after raju raised his charges. -Bharatveer (talk) 12:50, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Really? He had to resign? The website of Exeter University's Department of Education (as of July 21, 2008) lists him on the staff. Go to the bottom of the page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:53, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) This material has no place in Atiyah's biography. He is simply one of the most respected living mathematicians in the world and is not surrounded by controversy. The added content was original research and WP:SYNTH. Similar fringe attacks have been made on the page of Edward Witten because of his work on string theory. When Atiyah lectures on his recent work with Gregory Moore of Rutgers (I heard him at the IHES during Alain Connes' 60th birthday celebrations last year), he quite openly admits that it is speculative and possibly wrong in parts: now that he has retired, he says he no longer has to worry anout getting tenure :-) Mathsci (talk) 08:51, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Mathsci , Can you please explain why this material has no place in biography. This plagiarism charge is as per WP:RS , since this is coming from an INDEPENDENT PEER RIEWED scientific community. It is strange to hear from you that the content added was WP:OR & WP:SYNTH. Can you please explain???-Bharatveer (talk) 12:54, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

P.S. F & F, "Uncle Tom" was the editor of Newton's Mathematical Papers. Somebody else had already done the writing. :-) Mathsci (talk) 08:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Mathsci, Thanks for the correction! That was a slip. :) I do know that he was the editor. I haven't actually taken a look at the eight volumes, but know about them only through R. S. Westfall's Never at Rest, and S. Chandrasekhar's Newton's Principia for the Common Reader. The slip may have been a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that "editing" works like that, which involves annotation and interpretation, is a monumental task, similar to Piero Sraffa and Morris Dobb's editing of David Ricardo, and is in many ways a work of critical authorship. Thanks for your clear and supportive post! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler has a point here. Are we supposed to mention Raju on other scientist's pages as well?? WP:UNDUE wins this case. Yeah we can surely have this in Raju's article. KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 16:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

User:knowledge, Can you explain that point. The issue here is not Raju, rather it is about including this charge of plagiarism in atiyah's page' who is described as the one the greatest geometer of the whole universe in this article. User:fowler believes that this section should be excluded since it is poorly sourced . But it is very clear this is as per WP:RS since the reference is taken from an independent scientific community who had come to this conclusion after peer review .-Bharatveer (talk) 05:32, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Now it has come to known that Raju's charge is also supported by a number of eminent scientists from many reputed organisations like TIFR. I hope to collect more details of this and will soon try to post this here.-Bharatveer (talk) 06:27, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please work upon that. However, a whole section on the accusation is undue. --KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 11:34, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

UserKnowledge, Please see the history. The edited portion of this "plagiarism" issue was deleted in toto.I was asked to give more explanation to the charges. Now when the section was elaborated with complete references, you are seeing it is UNDUE. Please reconsider and restore this section (or atleast the edited part). -Bharatveer (talk) 11:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Well I reverted the removal as I found it abrupt but that does not necessarily mean that I supported the previous section too. A would settle for a comprimise with a single statement about the accusations and not a whole section! Thats against BLP and undue. -- KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 11:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the controversy section can be renamed criticism page. Again , I dont think a single sentence would be sufficient to include this issue.-Bharatveer (talk) 11:58, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry there is no controversy here (or criticism for that matter). I'm happy to do a mediation on this topic with either of you guys or both of you. As soon as either of you agree I will contact the Mediation Cabal. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:19, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

User:fowler, Why are you running away from the discussion? Why do you feel that there is no controversy? Why do you feel that SSV website is poorly sourced? It is very clear from the SSV website that atiyah' had to concede that he will cite Raju's work in further publications. This is precisely the reason why SSV has placed this on their website.-Bharatveer (talk) 12:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Nope, I'm not going to waste my time with you. I know a great deal more about Atiyah's work than you, Raju or anyone on that bogus SSV website. Mediation or bust. Simple. Kapish? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:40, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry to see such "weeping" from my scholarly friend. Anyway great response. But point is even this will not help much. I hope WP community is seeing this discussion.-Bharatveer (talk) 12:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Bharatveer, SSV claims

Now that he (Atiyah) is aware of them, he assured that he would certainly cite them if and when he publishes something on the subject. In the light of the responses from Dr. Atiyah and the counter-response of Dr. Raju, establishing a prima-facie case, it was decided to place the response of both sides on the SSV website.

Where are the responses? Can I have the link? If not, I support F&f. --KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 15:29, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

CONTROVERSY SECTION - ISSUES INVOLVED

1.According to Wikipedia:Verifiability, the threshold for inclusion is verifiablity, not truth . It is very clear from the Official website of SSV , this is clearly "verifiable" . Use:fowler has a single prong strategy of abusing everyone who has come out against Atiyah. See http://www.scientificvalues.org/members.html; http://www.scientificvalues.org/exec.html. As per SSV website it is clearly stated that After ascertaining from 3 independent experts that the complaint is valid, SSV contacted Dr. Atiyah for his views. Atiyah wrote to SSV that...he has indeed lectured on the subject without being aware of Raju's publications. Now that he is aware of them, he assured that he would certainly cite them if and when he publishes something on the subject.

2.A scholar is expected to know what work has been done earlier, and to acknowledge it. So, what is the substance of User:Fowler's case? That Atiyah did not know of Raju's earlier books and papers? That he made an independent rediscovery based on ignorance? Any plagiarist can say that with the greatest of ease. For this reason, claiming independence based on ignorance is a recognized unethical practice (Please see http://www.ams.org/secretary/ethics.html ). Is User:Fowler arguing that Atiyah is exempt from this ethics on the grounds that he is a "great mathematician"? This is not be the first time that Atiyah has claimed such "independent rediscovery". In another case, Atiyah claimed to have independently rediscovered a result an hour before he received it in the mail (http://www.peoplesarchive.com/browse/transcript/2603/en/off/). And there may well be more such cases, so this tendency of Atiyah certainly needs to be noted in his biography.

3. Raju has published a commonsense theory to discriminate between independent rediscovery and plagiarism. (C. K. Raju, Cultural Foundations of Mathematics, Pearson Longmans, 2007, chapter 6, Models of Information Transmission.) The substance is that plagiarists tend to make mistakes. Raju has claimed that Atiyah made a mistake while repeating his ideas(http://ckraju.net/Is_this_Ethical.pdf). Is user: Fowler explicitly denying that Atiyah made a mistake? And if Atiyah did make a mistake, will User:Fowler accept that Atiyah is a plagiarist? There is a petition signed by an impressive list of people who have supported Raju against the non-publication of this letter. The signatories including Prof.M.G.K.Menon(FRS, and former Director of TIFR), Prof. A. N. Mitra (Delhi University), N. Achar (Memphis University), R. Balsubramaniam (IIT: Kanpur). (http://ckraju.net/atiyah/signatories.pdf)

4. It should be noted that Raju did not charge Atiyah with plagiarism right away. In the first instance, after Atiyah's Einstein lecture, Raju only informed Atiyah of his prior work. Raju raised the charge of plagiarism only when Atiyah's priority was again pressed a second time. Atiyah has certainly not denied that he knew of Raju's work at the time as Raju has claimed. Nor has Atiyah denied that he was shown the paper prior to publication, as M. Walker has stated. Is user:Fowler maintaining that this is allowed just because Atiyah is a great mathematician?

5.User:Fowler's argument that Atiyah might have got the idea from some other source, such as Jaum Gine is a baseless, irrelevant and an inadmissible piece of pure speculation. Atiyah has acknowledged Raju, not Gine. Anyway, this does not exonerate Atiyah, for, as Fowler notes, Gine cites Raju. So if User:Fowler is right, and Atiyah did get the idea from Gine, then Atiyah certainly knew of Raju's work. Besides, if it is Fowler's case that Atiyah missed the reference to Raju in Gine's paper, why did Atiyah not acknowledge Gine? So, Gine is just a red-herrring which does not abslove Atiyah. -Bharatveer (talk) 04:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

No Controversy Simple Facts

KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 has a point, this discussion is getting digressed & conjectures must be supported with facts .

I’m no authority on the subject & have reverence for contributions of eminent scientists who must be deemed as global citizens. Still I feel it very unfair & unruly to misappropriate credits.

Eminent researcher & Universalist Dr. C.K. Raju suggested using functional differential equations (chapter 5b and 6b of his book Time: Towards a Consistent Theory (Kluwer Academic1994). He argued that functional differential equations meant a paradigm shift in physics, and could explain quantum mechanics. Atiyah echoed exactly the same thing in his Einstein lecture of October 2005, except that he did not acknowledge Raju's already published work. What Atiyah said at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics on 21 October 2005 is available online at: http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/strings05/atiyah/.

This should be compared with Raju's book. The Atiyah-Raju case is one of the cases of misconduct investigated by the Society for Scientific Values which acknowledged that Raju has a prima facie case against Atiyah. (See the website: http://www.scientificvalues.org/cases.html, case no. 2 of 2007 "Atiyah-Raju case").

However, the Society did not go into the following further details which speak for themselves. Atiyah was promptly informed of Raju's prior work. But, by means of a "second oversight", Atiyah was again given credit for Raju's ideas in a prominent article in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, written in consultation with Atiyah, and published in June 2006 http://www.ams.org/notices/200606/comm-walker.pdf).

Raju's work was belatedly acknowledged in April 2007 in the same journal http://www.ams.org/notices/200704/commentary-web.pdf). This was obviously not enough. However, Raju's letter pointing out Atiyah's "second oversight" and a mathematical blunder that Atiyah made was not published by the Notices. In this letter, Raju pointed out that such blunders are the hallmark of plagiarism. Not giving Raju an opportunity to present his side is the reason for the petition against celebrity justice signed by many eminent persons, including Prof. M. G. K. Menon, FRS and former Director of TIFR, Dr P. M. Bhargava, Prof. A. N. Mitra, Dr Vandana Shiva and many many others. (See list of signatories at http://ckraju.net/atiyah/signatories.pdf).

Having said that, how on earth does it matter whether it has been endorsed and acknowledged by the individuals/societies or not, if that puts to rest all our doubts it will not be appropriate. We as human beings have innate capability to assess facts & subsequenltly draw our conclusions devoid of any animosity & influence. I hope Fowler, Bharatveer & KnowledgeHegemony will agree.

For some more details see http://ckraju.net/atiyah/atiyahcase.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhimars (talk • contribs) 05:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)Abhimars (talk) 05:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)abhimars

User: abhimars , Please see that Controversy mentioned here refers to "name of a section in the WP article Michael_Atiyah" and this in itself does not mean this plagiarism issue is "controversial . Since WP relies on "Verifiability" , it was pointed out that this Plagiarism charge has found "prima facie" acceptance by a Scientific community (SSV) . Again Raju's case was supported by a group of eminent scientists from India & abroad.-Bharatveer (talk) 05:57, 23 July 2008 (UTC)Bharatveer (talk) 06:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

User: Bharatveer, I consent with your view. Though my point is that Controversy carries negative connotation & indepth perusal will subside all doubts & shall see all contention dissipating making things crystal clear. So its just facts which are required for enlightenment. Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhimars (talk • contribs) 07:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Bharatveer and single-purpose-account-Abhimars, If you are so confident, let's go for a mediation. No more dumping of the same tired stuff here. OK? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Fowler , you are indulging in WP:BITE . Please try to calmly discuss your points here.-Bharatveer (talk) 08:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see Think hard before calling newcomers Single-purpose account from WP:BITE. Your main point was raju's case was not supported by scientists from reputed organistations. Now when you are given refs, which shows support for Raju's case, Please have the decency to acknowledge your mistake.-Bharatveer (talk) 09:01, 23 July 2008 (UTC)Bharatveer (talk) 09:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec/unindent) I don't think a mediator is necessary. This contentious hearsay is not encyclopedic and has no place on wikipedia. It is WP:OR. The attempt to besmirch the name of one of the most distinguished British academics has no place in a WP:BLP: it seems libellous. If problems continue, the best first step might be to post something on the Wikiproject Mathematics page to get comments from a larger group of mathematicians. User:R.e.b. and I concur with User:Fowler&fowler and I have no doubt that plenty of other mathematics editors/professional mathematicians will also. Mathsci (talk) 09:08, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Mathsci , what makes you think this is Contentious hearsay .SSV website is a reliable source and NOT WP:OR in any case. Please keep your feelings away . Please explain why you feel this plagiarism charge is Hearsay-Bharatveer (talk) 09:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

If these papers have already been reviewed in one of the two official mathematical review journals Mathematical Reviews or Zentralblatt, you could quote what was written there. Otherwise public allegations of plagiarism are libellous and against the unequivocal guidelines of WP:BLP. Please take a moment to read them. Wikipedia is about verifiability in secondary sources not in truth. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 10:53, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

SSV website is WP:RS , it is not a Public allegation ; rather it is a conclusion reached by a Scientific community, after review by 3 INDEPENDENT experts; and as such it should find a place in this bio-.Bharatveer (talk) 11:57, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

While F&f claims that he knows a `great deal' about Atiyah's work, his/her statements here include some rather spectacular mistakes. This is, quite possibly, because s/he lacks the requisite understanding of quantum mechanics, FDEs or the other aspects of theoretical physics involved here.

Let us take these mistakes in order.

The first, regards, the importance of this work. F&f claims that this work is rather unimportant compared to what Atiyah has done previously, hence there is no motive to plagiarize. To the contrary, Atiyah himself assessed(in his talk at KITP and Lincoln) that, if the link between quantum mechanics and FDE's is established, it would lead to a `Nobel Prize' and that if he was younger he would have spent a lot more time on this idea. Indeed, if F&f had bothered to read the content of these talks or even perform a cursory examination of the information available of raju's website, s/he would have seen that the idea originally articulated by Raju and reiterated by Atiyah has to do with finding a basis for quantum mechanics using functional differential equations. This, if established, is clearly more significant than an `index' or the construction of instantons in YM theory or other past work that Atiyah has been involved with. That work is important, but this would involve in language used earlier by Raju and later again by Atiyah, a `paradigm shift'! Hence, we must dismiss one of the objections raised by F&f, of the presumed unimportane of this work.

The second involves a rather wild speculative theory of how Atiyah chanced upon this idea. According to F&f, Atiyah probably read Gine's paper in Chaos, Solitons and Fractals! This demonstrates a rather grave lack of knowledge of how theoretical physics operates today. It is possible that Atiyah read Gine's paper on the arXiv, but extremely unlikely that he regularly browses CS&F (with an impact factor of 3). The mention of CS&F as a `mathematics journal' seems designed purely to invoke a high falutin name which, unfortunately, in this case has no authority. Furthermore, there is no evidence for this theory at all. As far as I know, Atiyah has *never* cited Gine. On what basis did F&f come to this conclusion. Does s/he have some inside knowledge? More likely, s/he is simply faffing and trying to throw people off track.

The third involves the case of Almeida. Here, again it is clear that F&f did not bother to check the publicly available materials on Raju's website. these include two reports in the HT; the first reporting a warning given by the Universit of Exeter to Almeida and the second retracting a claim made by the paper that Joseph and Almeida were the first to mention the notion of the transmission of the calculus from Kerala to Europe. It requires quite a lot of evidence for a large mainstream newspaper to actually publish a correction, so I would request F&f to take that seriously. I would also like to direct F&f to an open letter of apology that Almeida addressed to Raju.

To concluse then, F&f's case which rests on (a) the presume unimportance of this issue (b) an alternate hypothesis of how Atiyah came to this idea and (c) Raju's lack of credibility, fails on all three counts. What is disappointing is that a little research on the net is enough to demonstrate this.

Atiyah's Mistake

Another point that has been stressed by Raju is that Atiyah made an elementary error in his speech at Lincoln and also at the KITP. Atiyah failed to recognize that FDE's arise automatically in relativistic electrodynamics. This mistake, Raju argued, is evidence of copying; if a person does not fully understand an idea she probably did not come with it herself.

Institutional Authority

It has been argued that this is not a controversy because members of the science establishment in India have not supported this. In fact, SSV does represent the science establishment in India. Moreover, given that this science establishment is rather non-confrontational, the fact that they have actually taken cognizance of this matter is itself an indicator as to the strength of the evidence. Furthermore, F&f does not seem to have read the petition signed by several eminent academics in India that asks AMS to investigate this mather thoroughly. See the petition here: http://www.ckraju.net/atiyah/Petition_against_celebrity_justice.pdf and the list of signatories at: http://www.ckraju.net/atiyah/signatories.pdf

From F&f's writings, and from the errors s/he made here, I would assume that his/her expertise is in history rather than a hard science like mathematics or theoretical physics. So, I would like to point out that several eminent historians, including Sumit Sarkar and others are signatories on this petition. This point has already been raised above.

MathSci does not seem to have an argument here, at all. S/he seems to have come to a judgement on the matter without performing any study at all. His/her argument is that one should not criticize Atiyah or mention controversy because this involves an `eminent' British academic. What sort of logic is this? Several eminent academics are guilty of academic malpractice and eminence is rarely a guarantee of model academic behavior. I think MathSci's argument should be ignored.

Perusnarpk (talk) 11:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) If you can find statements supporting what you say in Mathematical Reviews or Zentralblatt, it can be included in the article. As said before, wikipedia is about WP:RS and WP:V, verifiability and reliable sources, not about truth. There are also strict rules as to what can be included in a WP:BLP. Please take some time to read up on these. BTW, as this is your very first edit and you seem to know about this page, are you by any chance a previously registered user using an alternative account to edit here? Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 12:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly the point .WP is about Verifiablity and not truth. The official website of SSV is clearly verifiable. It is an authentic scientific community which gave its decision after INDEPENDENT peer review. Please note that according to their website. Atiyah's views were also considered.-Bharatveer (talk) 12:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with User:perusnarpk's view . User:Matsci's argument looks weak.-Bharatveer (talk)

Is freshly arrived editor Abhimars, whose only edits have been to this page today, not by any chance a previously registered user using an alternative account to edit here? Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 12:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh boy another vacuous single-purpose account. Perus whatever your name-of-the-moment is, It appears to you that I might be a historian. Really? In the same way that it appears to you that Calculus might have been transmitted from Kerala to Europe? I might be a historian or I might not be, but I know more mathematics than you. Want to have a speed exchange here on the mathematics of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem including the Heat Equation Approach? In that go brush up on Calderon-Zygmund Singular integral theory and McKeon-Singer theory first. Or would you like to have an exchange on Donaldson and Atiyah's work on the topology of 4-manifolds. In that case, please go bone up on the theorems of Karen Uhlenbeck in non-linear harmonic analysis. Or would you like to talk about Witten's work on eta-invariants? ... Pathetic. I haven't made any errors. Believe me, I know a lot more mathematics than you ever will. Please take you act somewhere else. It ain't gonna happen on Wikipedia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

tall, taller,tallest... all hot air. User:fowler. Please discuss things relevant here.-Bharatveer (talk ) 12:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec/unindent) "Einstein and geometry" will not be reviewed on Mathscinet, but has been reviewed in Zentralblatt. The reviewer wrote, "The paper gives an overview of the role of geometry for fundamental physics, based on Einstein's ideas, and in some extent the philosophical implications of these ideas. The topics covered in the short survey are the fourth and fifth dimension (needed to account for time and electromagnetism), the Yang-Mills theory, the string-theory with its replacement of point representation of particles with one-dimensional strings, M-theory, knot theory and other, many still to be developed, geometrical theories implied by Einstein's theories and results." Completely anodyne, no controversy. Mathsci (talk) 12:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Please give any citation which says there is no controversy. Your views are Not WP:RS anyway.

I provided a reference which is as per WP:RS (A scientific organisation which pursued this CASE through 3 independent experts).-Bharatveer (talk) 13:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)Bharatveer (talk) 13:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Has it been established that the Society for Scientific Values is a WP:RS? Why not post a query on the WP:RS/N for clarification? Mathsci (talk) 13:38, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

As Bharatveer points out, F&f's last post is completely off the topic. I reiterate, that I pointed out three substantive mistakes in F&f's previously articulated arguments. (1) F&f claimed that this topic was unimportant. This is incorrect as would be clear to anyone even slightly familiar with the subject matter. If not, then Atiyah's own emphatic assessment falsifies F&f's claim. (2) F&f presented an undocumented theory for how Atiyah may have chanced upon these ideas. Not only is there no evidence to back this theory -- since Atiyah never cites Gine -- the theory itself is quite preposterous as would be clear to anyone with slight familiarity with the workings of the theoretical physics community. (3) F&f neglected important evidence in the Almeida case, including a letter of apology and media reports regarding the warning that the University of Exeter served Almeida.

As Ekonka points out below, I think it is important to restrict comments to the topic at hand. I merely remarked in passing, that F&f's mistakes above seemed to suggest a lack of appropriate training in theoretical physics or mathematics. I must say that F&f's ridiculous reponse only heightens my suspicions; in my experience such bluster and insecurity is generally inversely correlated to actual knowledge. However, I may be mistaken here. So, I have placed a little test problem on F&f's talk page :-)

A little knowledge of supersymmetry, yang mills theory and indices permits an easy solution. If not, alas.

p.s: I would like to request F&f to provide this solution on my talk page. I propose that we restrict discussion on this page to the matter at hand, and forswear braggadocio.

Perusnarpk (talk) 19:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

BLP

Hi, popping in as an uninvolved administrator here, to take a look at the conflict. I will freely admit that I am not conversant with the details of this individual's biography. However, I can comment on the implementation of Wikipedia policies. The primary one in effect here, is WP:BLP, "Biographies of Living Persons". This is one of the most important policies on Wikipedia, and it is directly applicable here, since the dispute is about whether or not to include negative information in a biography.

As I understand the current dispute, it is about whether or not to include information about an accusation of plagiarism. To include such information, BLP requires that there be multiple reliable published sources which prove that this information is true and notable. So far I have seen one source in The Hindu, and one from the "Society for Scientific Values". If these are the only two sources, then I do not believe that the standard of BLP has been met. If the case does gain more notoriety though, and is picked up by other reliable sources, then it might be worth a mention. Another policy that would apply here though, would be WP:UNDUE, meaning that to maintain neutrality, views about a subject must be given "appropriate weight" in an article. In other words, if other information about this individual's life is covered in five hundred sources, and the controversy is only covered in five, then the controversy should only take up a proportionate amount in the Wikipedia article (1% or so), such as maybe one sentence. Not an entire section, unless the controversy started picking up steam in other sources.

For any further disputes on this page, my recommendations are:

• Please keep discussions focused on the article, and not the other editors
• If there is still considerable disagreement, try following one of the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution steps, such as filing a Request for comment, requesting mediation, or posting at a relevant noticeboard, such as the biographies noticeboard, the Reliable Sources noticeboard, or the Neutrality noticeboard.

Hope that helps, --Elonka 14:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd agree that the sources cited aren't sufficient to support the insertion. Atiyah's Collected Works are full of survey lectures in different areas. No one really thinks such lectures or surveys claim credit in such a way as to support accusations of misconduct. Charles Matthews (talk) 15:23, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Charles. Hopefully see you in Cambridge. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 17:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing the discussion back on track Elonka.

In addition to the sources that you mentioned there are two other important verifiable sources.

1)The first is a letter in the Notices of the AMS: http://www.ams.org/notices/200704/commentary-web.pdf written by Profs. Walker and Johnson from U. Lincoln that admits that Atiyah incorrectly claimed credit for previously published work. this letter is a smoking gun!

2)The second is a petition signed by a cross-section of the cream of Indian academia petitioning the AMS to pursue this smoking gun to its logical conclusion. The petition itself is available at: http://www.ckraju.net/atiyah/Petition_against_celebrity_justice.pdf and a list of signatories that includes some very prominent academics is available at: http://www.ckraju.net/atiyah/signatories.pdf

Given that the controversy has created a furor in sections of the Indian academia, and the fact that the AMS was forced to publish this embarrassing letter indicates that this controversy is not unimportant. So, I think it deserves mention.

Charles Mathews' note above is quite irrelevant. This was not a `survey lecture'. Atiyah presented these ideas at a research seminar in KITP, and then again in a public lecture at Lincoln, where he emphasized that if the idea worked, the audience should remember that he mentioned it first. This was duly reported in the Notices of the AMS and then followed by this embarrassing admission that Atiyah had, in fact, not mentioned it first! Given the manifest potential importance of these ideas (according to Atiyah's own admission), I think this is academic malpractice. Hence, I think that this controversy merits mention.

Perusnarpk (talk) 19:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

If this is the article from The Hindu that Elonka mentioned - it is from 2003, long before the incident between Raju and Atiyah. The sources are this:

• The SSV website has a single paragraph [1]
• A letter to the editor [2] in which reference is made to Raju's work. As is typical for a letter of this sort, there is no discussion of priority, only a pointer to references. The reader of the Notices is left to sort everything out.
• A petition [3] that only encourages the AMS to allow Raju to publish a letter to the editor - the petition itself does not claim that any plagiarism actually took place, only that Raju should be allowed to argue that it did (the conclusion is simply: "... we urge you to prevail upon the editor of the Notices to permit a fuller discussion of this matter in the Notices.")

No references to any mainstream media coverage of the incident have been provided; if this were truly a notable incident of plagiarism, given Raju's energetic defense of his ideas, I would expect to find some. Without making any conclusion about the validity of Raju's claims, I don't see that there are enough reliable, secondary sources here to include Raju's claims in the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Those were my thoughts too. There is no admission of anything in the AMS letter. Meanwhile, Perusnick has left a "test problem" on my talk page, written in the language of mathematical physicists not mathematicians, which seems culled from here. Sorry, Perusnick, I said mathematics, not mathematical physics.

Meanwhile, please consider writing to both Britannica and Encarta. They both have Atiyah pages as well, and neither seems to have heard of Raju. Wikipedia:Deny recognition Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's try to focus on the issues relevant to the article, rather than discussing each other. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:33, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

OK. My apologies. Here is the extent of coverage of this "controversy." Google news in its archive search from 2001 to 2008 has nothing on Atiyah and Raju. Also, the Google Advanced search for "MF Atiyah" OR "Michael Atiyah" OR "Michael Francis Atiyah" OR "Michael F. Atiyah" returns 117,000 links; unfortunately when "CK Raju" is appended to the search, the number of links drops precipitously to 15, of which only 13 are about the controversy: ckraju.net, www.blogs.ivarta.com, rajiv2004.blogspot.com, indiancalculus.info, and physicsforum.blogs.blog (where user:Amberwaves from upstairs has made an identical newbie post). On Google Scholar the search for Atiyah returns 7,680 links; however, again, upon appending "CK Raju" to the search the academic links dramatically whittle down to 1; it is the same letter to the editors of the Notices.

The evidence, apparently, is not overwhelming that Sir Mike has been sneaking a peek at the classmate's exam. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

It's worth reading Atiyah's replies to Raju's persistent emails in this package prepared by Raju. In particular, in one of them, Atiyah says, "While I was in Santa Barbara, California, my attention was drawn to Feynman's thesis (1942) (just recently published under that title by World Scientific Press -author Laurie Brown). Retarded and advanced differential equations arise there in the context of the dynamics of charged particles and you might find the discussion interesting." And in another, "So far neither you nor I are anywhere near the first goal of explaining quantum mechanics in terms of retarded differential equations. The ideas are intriguing but the obstacles both conceptual and technical remain formidable." It's Atiyah's polite way of saying that the work is mostly speculative, and, in any case, he is being inspired by the work of others. Raju, apparently, is unable to grasp this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

F&f, since you have already admitted Mathematical Physics is beyond your ken, please stop making me laugh! Feynman's thesis has nothing to do with Functional Differential Equations. Go read it! Second, Atiyah's attention was drawn to Feynman's thesis *after* he gave his talk at Santa Barbara. Was he `inspired', post-facto??? I am quite disappointed at the level of the comments you continue to make. Perusnarpk (talk) 04:36, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Carl, I think that the letter in the notices of the AMS is quite significant. The letter states that "ideas ... were put forward some years ago by Raju". When read in conjunction with the previous bulletin of the AMS, in which Atiyah was quoted as saying: "don’t forget I suggested it", the conclusion is clear.

I think one should keep in mind that the AMS tries to steer clear of controversy of this kind -- especially given that Atiyah is a prominent mathematician -- so the publication of this letter indicates that they came under intense pressure.

Second, the petition is far more emphatic than what you suggest above. The petition states: "there is a prima facie case that ... [Raju's] ... work was initially suppressed." It states its suspicion that "there are no answers to Raju’s charges, and that the editor is misusing his authority to shield Atiyah" and refers to "extraordinary circumstances".

Short of pronouncing judgment, it is clear that the signatories of the petition feel that this is a very serious case.

Returning to the eminence of the signatories of this petition, it is easy to see that they include some very eminent Indian academics. In fact, several including Ashis Nandy, Vandana Shiva, Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar have detailed biographies on Wikipedia itself.

Finally, while the SSV website clearly indicates that a detailed investigation was carried out; Atiyah views were also solicited but `3 independent experts' pronounced that the complaint was valid.

I think that each of these 3 sources should carry a lot of weight. One has to do with the pre-eminent mathematical society in the US, coming as close to an admission of guilt in ascribing credit, as one could possibly expect; the other has to do with famous academics, eminent by any standard, declaring that a prima facie case of inappropriate suppression of credit exists; and the third has to do with a well known ethics society in India which reports on a detailed investigation and declares that the complaint is valid.

F&f argument is quite frivolous, and I am sorry to say, somewhat dishonest. I dont think that number of google hits is a good indicator. Second, while you went through the results of the second search and weeded out the large amount of spam (which comprised the majority of results), you did not do so with your first search. This leads to inflated figures. Please dont try these unsavory tricks here. On the other hand it may interest you to see that the google hits for a small subset of the signatories of this petition against Atiyah exceed half a million pages (well in excess of `Sir Michael') ! When academics of such eminence sign a scathing petition, doesnt it deserve at least a mention in Wikipedia?

Perusnarpk (talk) 04:31, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

On the one hand we have C.K. Raju, who has a scathing petition, signed by academics of eminence, with combined Google links in the half a million range. On the other hand, we have lonely Sir Michael, who has no supporters, no petitions to call his own, let alone scathing ones, and, to boot, has only 117,000 links. Please save that argument for the Mediation Committee. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:03, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

For all of Raju's vaunted "first solution," he seems nowhere to be found in Google Scholar search on "functional differential equations." Actually, I should correct myself, he was not in the first 300 links. Since there were at least 15 publications on functional differential equations published between 1900 and 1940, another 19 publications between 1940 and 1950, another 32 publications between 1950 and 1960, another 305 publications between 1960 and 1970, anther 1,240 publications between 1970 and 1980, another 2,880 publications between 1980 and 1994, when Raju published his magnum opus (see this package prepared by Raju), perhaps Sir Michael might be excused for being remiss in not noticing. In addition there were another 6,240 publications between 1994 and 2004, when Raju published his "first solution" here, which turns out to be a numerical solution (and uses a package called "RETARD"). Compare now the mathematical sophistication of Raju's 2004 paper to some of the publications from the 1940s above, and you get the idea. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

From C.P. Snow's 1970 introduction to Hardy's Apology:

"He was by this time, at the age of thirty six, a world famous mathematician, and world famous mathematicians he had already discovered, are unusually exposed to cranks. He was accustomed to receiving manuscripts from strangers, proving the prophetic wisdom of the Great Pyramid, the revelations of the Elders of Zion, or the cryptograms that Bacon had inserted in the plays of the so-called Shakespeare."

Hardy was lucky that one time: he found Ramanujan. That CK Raju is no Ramanujan is amply evidenced in the pathetic correspondence to be found in this package prepared by Raju. One side—Atiyah, the Nebraska professors—has two-liners; the other, in Karl Marx's felicitous words, has no time to be brief.

I think I am done with this page. I might return if there is ever an RfC or mediation. There's nothing to Raju's claim. There's actually even less than I had originally thought. The very best regards to everyone, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Re Perusnarpk and Fowler, I think you are arguing the wrong question here. It doesn't make so much difference here whether Atiyah did, or did not, commit plagiarism, and that question should be discussed elsewhere. It isn't our place on this page to make a decision about it. What we can consider on this page is whether there are sufficient secondary sources to support the inclusion of Raju's claims in a Wikipedia article. Regardless of the validity of Raju's claims (and I have no opinion about their validity - they may be accurate), until they are reported on more broadly by other mainstream sources, they aren't appropriate for inclusion here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:33, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

F&f's comments above are irrelevant.

The claim here regards the *relation* between Functional Differential Equations and Quantum Mechanics. Neither Raju, nor Atiyah, nor anyone else discussed here claimed to be the inventor of `functional differential equations'; indeed, the theory of FDE's has been known for a long time. No one claimed otherwise. It is the *link* to quantum mechanics that is new and under dispute.

F&f looked at papers on functional differential equations. Did any of them discuss possible links to quantum mechanics? No. This idea is new. And, the fact that this is interesting is beyond dispute; in fact, Atiyah himself emphasized this in the letter to AMS and in his two talks.

The 2004 paper by Raju, applied FDEs to the two body problem in electrodynamics. This had not been done previously. Numerical techniques to solve FDEs have been around for a long time. Hairer, for example, worked on these but they have not been applied to the many body electrodynamic problem previously.

What is F&f trying to show with his/her irrelevant details about papers on FDEs above. I can only conclude that F&f does not even understand what the issue at hand is.

Indeed the past several contributions that F&f has made have been quite absurd. Consider: 1)First, F&f made three substantive mistakes that were pointed out above. F&f has still not responded to these. (2) Then F&f raised a ridiculous point about Atiyah being `inspired' by Feynman's thesis, although Atiyah himself states he learnt of this after delivering his talk. Moreover, Feynman's thesis contains no mention of FDEs and quantum mechanics. (3)Now F&f has come up with some irrelevant historical details about the development of the theory of FDEs although the issue here is about a *link* between FDEs and quantum mechanics!

The fact that F&f is out of his depth here is evident. I hope this is clear to even the non-specialists who are reading this talk!

Perusnarpk (talk) 12:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Carl, thanks for bringing the discussion back on track. I tried to make a point about the strength of the secondary sources above.

This was in response to your previous criticism that the secondary sources cited were not strong. Could you please respond to my point above of 4:31, 24 July. What determines adequacy of secondary sources? thanks,

Perusnarpk (talk) 12:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

The issue is that the sources don't demonstrate any widespread interest in the plagiarism charges. Although you may feel the letter to the editor is an important piece of evidence, we can hardly use it here as if it were a third-party report on plagiarism; it isn't a secondary source at all. The only somewhat reasonable source is the SSV website, but even it gives very little information about the incident - who were the three experts who reviewed the case? Where are the statements by Atiyah and Raju that the SSV said it will post on its website?

The key factor, for me, is that no mainstream media sources have found Raju's claims of sufficient interest to write a story about them. If the claims were truly of widespread interest (and that is not the same as questioning their accuracy), they would be covered by the media. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

As I've already indicated Google news archive search (consisting of thousands of newspapers world-wide) between 2001 and 2008 has nothing on Atiyah and Raju. And of the 7,680 academic links in Google Scholar about Atiyah, : only one has anything to do with Raju; it is the same letter to the editors of the Notices by the Lincoln-Nebraska profs that doesn't acknowledge any wrong doing, only recommending some publications of Raju for interested readers. One in 7,680, is about one hundredth of one per cent. There's nothing on academic sites (.edu). I've already said all that, but apparently, Perusnick manages to go on and on. Anyway, CBM, I'll let you pursue this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:16, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

F&F is using his usual tactics of personal abuses and tall claims again. The only point to consider here is the "validity" of plagiarism chage. Since WP relies on Verifiablity instead of truth, I think there is no point in WP editors trying to find the truth of the plagiarism charge. There is already a reference , coming from a SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY, who PURSUED THIS Plagiarism charge through 3 INDEPENDENT EXPERTS and finally came to the conclusion. I would like to know why this reference is not acceptable to users:f&f , users;mathsci-Bharatveer (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

The text on the SSV website is a very brief synopsis, not the actual report of the (unnamed) three experts, and so it's very difficult to tell exactly what the three experts decided. Moreover, where are the statements that the SSV claims they posted on their website? In short, I don't think that the SSV website would be a suitable reference for a sentence in the article. If there were any mainstream media stories about this, I would favor inclusion of a sentence about it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:49, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Independently of this controversy - possibly of his own creation - would C.K. Raju merit a wikipedia biography? On the basis of his 7 mathematical papers since 1982 reviewed on Mathscinet and Zentralblatt, it is hard to see any convincing signs of notability. Some reviews are unusually dismissive, pointing out errors and major misconceptions as recently as 2006. He published in Santilli's Hadronic Journal (non peer-reviewed) and in Foundations of Physics (improperly peer-reviewed until 't Hooft's takeover). Wny should this speculative post-retirement work of Atiyah be mentioned at all, when his work on Magnetic Monopoles with Hitchin is not even hinted at, nor his work on Yang-Mills equations on a Riemann Surface with Bott, nor the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer index theorem, etc, etc (There are six thick volumes of Atiyah's collected works.) Apart from being potentially libellous and - in view of Raju's slender scientific output and the lack of undisputed sources - potentially trumped up, why should such WP:UNDUE weight be given to Atiyah's highly speculative oral ruminations at the age of 75? Mathsci (talk) 17:23, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe it's necessary to evaluate either Atiyah's or Raju's scholarly qualifications in determining whether to add a sentence about the plagiarism claim. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) But why are we even discussing the possible plagiarism of a paper when there is no sourced evidence that (a) the original paper was properly refereed (b) that it was correct? I have found no academic evidence to support either (a) or (b). Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 19:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

sub-section

(unindent) Agree entirely with Mathsci. Atiyah spoke in general terms in his Nebraska lecture, about all physical theories, not just quantum mechanics. The Notices articles on Atiyah's talk said (italics mine):

"Atiyah noted that all physical models since Newton, including even quantum mechanics, have assumed one basic premise—that we can predict the future from full knowledge of the present. Atiyah suggested an alternative to this paradigm: Perhaps we need full knowledge of the present and the past in order to predict the future. That is, maybe the universe has memory. As a simple example, the notion of the velocity of an object is viewed as being a property of the present, but, in reality, to measure velocity one needs to know not only where the object is now but where it was a moment earlier. Atiyah’s hypothesis possibly leads to several interesting consequences: 1. The mathematics used in physical theory would become more difficult, since all previously used mathematics in physics assumes that knowledge of the present suffices. With the new paradigm, for example, retarded (or delay) differential equations would become necessary. 2. Since we do not have complete knowledge of the past, uncertainty would arise. This might shed light on the uncertainty inherent in quantum mechanics. 3. Perhaps the complicated mathematics of string theory arises from our attempt to understand the full implications of the theory of general relativity without incorporating the knowledge of the past."

The topic has been treated by others scholars, for example by Rodney Driver in his "A Backward 2-body Problem of Classical Relativistic Electrodynamics" (1969), published 25 years before Raju's first work on this (1994), and 35 year before Raju's An Electrodynamic 2-body Problem and the Origin of Quantum Mechanics. Atiyah is talking about all physical theories. Why should he single out Quantum Mechanics and Raju's work. If anything he should have singled out Driver's paper, since it was written 25 years earlier. As far as I know, we don't hear Driver complaining. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

PS As for CBM's statement, "If there were any mainstream media stories about this, I would favor inclusion of a sentence about it," (and I'm sure he didn't mean it this way), I feel there'd have to be more than a few stories for anything to merit mention in Atiyah's article, especially, as MathSci stated above, many more important things have been left unsaid in the article. I'm sure Raju could bend some hapless journalist's ear in India and get something mentioned. After all he managed to find someone who was willing to write down that Einstein was a plagiarist. (See my example upstairs.) I just wanted to make sure that neither Raju nor his supporters here interpret "any" to mean just one, and re-start the refrain. Again, Atiyah was mentioned in 116 newspaper stories between 2001 and 2008 in Newspapers like the Guardian, Telegraph, New York Times, Independent, ...; of these not a single one is about the "controversy." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Other Stuff

Having been struck by MathSci's remark about what is missing in the article, I finally took a look at the article. It is quite sketchy. I'm happy to expand, at least up to just before his last (post 1990) phase. I noticed a few things:

• First some names. My sense is that both Singer and James (alg. topologist) are referred to as IM Singer and IM James in print. Do people want Isidore Singer and Ioan ... James?
• The lead refers to Atiyah as a geometer. Well, is he really just a geometer? I guess I mean, he's not a geometer in the sense that Gromov, or Chern, or Cheeger, or even Schoen and Yau are. And the index theorem was really about connecting topological and analytic invariants; the eta invariant (i.e. Atiyah-Patodi-Singer papers) did have a more geometric flavor, but the work still connected topological, spectral and geometric ideas. Earlier on, K-theory is really more topology. So, how do you think he should be characterized? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

So, that's funny. I just looked at that first sentence, and it cites the Abel Prize citation, but that citation says nothing about "geometer," in fact says stuff similar to above. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:06, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Stick to the Topic: Are there verifiable secondary sources

As Carl has suggested above, repeatedly, we should stick to the topic: are there verifiable secondary sources.

Carl, what about the petition. I think, on an initial reading, you seem to have misread it a bit. It is actually quite strongly worded. As I mentioned above

The petition states: "there is a prima facie case that ... [Raju's] ... work was initially suppressed." It states its suspicion that "there are no answers to Raju’s charges, and that the editor is misusing his authority to shield Atiyah" and refers to "extraordinary circumstances".

Short of pronouncing judgment, it is clear that the signatories of the petition feel that this is a very serious case. The signatories of this petition are very eminent. In fact, several including Ashis Nandy, Vandana Shiva, Sumit Sarkar and Tanika Sarkar have detailed biographies on Wikipedia itself.

Does this not constitute a valid secondary source?

P.S: regarding the letter to the editor, I should stress that this letter was written by `collaborators' of Atiyah (at least the people who helped write up the initial report of the talk) and not by Raju. So, it should be viewed as a post-facto retraction by the authors of the initial article.

P.P.S: F&f and MathSci have contributed some non-germane comments. I will address them parenthetically here. I am really getting very impatient with F&f who is quite energetic and produces a new spectacular misunderstanding every few hours! Now, F&f has come to the wonderful conclusion that Atiyah is talking about `physical theories' in general!!!! dude, at least go listen to Atiyah's KITP talk and read the transcript of his lecture at Lincoln. Atiyah explicitly discussed FDE's and their link to quantum mechanics. This was the primary content of his KITP lecture -- which was a serious research lecture -- delivered just before the public lecture at Lincoln (where he reiterated the idea). Atiyah has since reiterated this idea at the Connes fest in Paris, where he referred to Raju. Moreover, Atiyah's only published work on this topic is in the proceedings of the Solvay conference, where *Raju* is the only reference. Hence, the similarity between Atiyah's articulations and Raju's ideas is manifest and admitted by Atiyah. It should also be clear to anyone who is mildly familiar with the subject matter and has bothered to read the relevant material.

Your last conclusion that "Atiyah is talking about all physical theories" takes the cake, seriously! I have by now repeatedly pointed out serious errors of understanding in several points you have made above. You have not responded to a single *one* of these errors. Instead, you continue to produce new errors in response. F&f, you clearly dont understand what is going on -- please dont demonstrate your ignorance so publicly and dramatically.

MathSci, Foundations of Physics is a peer reviewed journal. I'm sorry, you dont decide when it started being `properly' peer reviewed. Moreover, this material was previously covered in the book 'Time Towards a Consistent Theory' published by Kluwer and in several articles published in Physics Education. These ideas are important as is admitted by Atiyah himself and Atiyah's articulations are manifestly related to Raju's previously published work as is established by (1) a cursory examination of the subject matter but for non-specialists (2) the letter to AMS and (3) Atiyah's reference at the Connes fest and the Proc. of the Solvay Conference where Raju is the *only* reference. Your ad hominem attacks on Raju are quite incorrect and in fact, you only demonstrate your own lack of research. Look at the list of papers here, which include dozens of published papers in addition to the three books that have already been discussed in detail here. Furthermore, look at the reviews here. Having obtained a testimonial from Dirac, I dont think Raju needs one from you (whoever you may be with whatever research output).

However, PLEASE stick the topic here and please don't force me into these rebuttals of inane points based on poor research or non-existent understanding (in the case of F&f)

Perusnarpk (talk) 22:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Not content to copy and paste from a paper of Raju Junior on my talk page, he is now copying and pasting entire sections from upstairs. Not interested. I'd rather write about Atiyah's beautiful proof of the Hopf invariant one problem. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Sign's of a Weak Argument

User:Fowler should respond to the substantive points instead of denigrating Raju, and the other editors and boasting about himself.

1. C. K. Raju's key point is that blunders prove plagiarism and that Atiyah made a blunder. A physics Nobel laureate, David Gross, objected to the same blunder during Atiyah's KITP talk, a streaming video of which is here (http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/strings05/atiyah/). The mail by Suvrat Raju (http://ckraju.net/atiyah/Suvrat_email.pdf/) to Atiyah refers to this. The petition (http://ckraju.net/atiyah/Petition_against_celebrity_justice.pdf) in support of Raju arose because this substantive point was suppressed. Does Fowler have a better explanation for Atiyah's blunder?

2. Raju's other point is that he corrected Einstein's mistake. This "Einstein correction" is what Atiyah is accused of copying. Isn't a correction to Einstein worth including in Atiyah's biography? Perhaps also on the Einstein page? Perhaps Raju too deserves a page on this?

3. Raju calls it a "fantastic coincidence" that Atiyah accidentally corrected Einstein during his Einstein lecture, for Atiyah did not relate it to the Einstein-Poincare dispute as Raju did. Atiyah has earlier claimed such imrobable coincidences, as noted by Bharatveer. Isn't it more likely that Atiyah read Raju's book while preparing for his Einstein lecture?

4. Fowler is angry with Raju for contesting Eurocentric history and exposing Western idols. But Fowler's only response is to abuse Raju, like D. T. Whiteside whom he cites. However, I agree with Raju's response (http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=1184740&tstart=0) to Whiteside that such personal abuse is a sure sign of a weak argument and does not really amount to an debate.Period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhimars (talk • contribs) 05:01, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I'm new to this talk page. Could you please provide a list of sources for the claim that Atiyah was guilty of plagiarism? I see a lot of links in the above, but I can't seem to find many sources that would be suitable for someone writing a biography. Has this story been taken up by any major news outlets, for instance? Thanks in advance! siℓℓy rabbit (talk) 05:07, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Silly rabbit Thanks for your interest and zest shown in exploring details:

Here is a list of sources to show that Atiyah is guilty of plagiarism.

1. Suvrat Raju's mail informing Atiyah about C. K. Raju's work. (http://ckraju.net/atiyah/Suvrat_email.pdf, Oct 26, 2005) 2. Atiyah's reply. (Oct 28, 2005)(http://ckraju.net/atiyah/Atiyah_response_1.pdf) 3. The subsequent article in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, which gives all credit to Atiyah, without acknowledging Raju. http://www.ams.org/notices/200606/comm-walker.pdf, July 2006) 4. The mail from M. Walker, an author of the above article, admitting that the article was shown to Atiyah before publication as would be only natural. (http://ckraju.net/atiyah/Walker_email.pdf)

Doesn't this amount to plagiarism? At the time of publication of this article Atiyah demonstrably knew of Raju's work, but it still went unacknowledged with Atiyah's approval. (Its thunder would have been stolen if it did acknowledge Raju.) It was in this article that the authors coined the term "Atiyah's hypothesis", with Atiyah's approval, which could have got Atiyah a lot of mileage, considering that it involved a potential "paradigm shift" in physics. Does something become plagiarism only if it is reported by the media? Is this the rule to be applied by Wikipedia to all future cases?

Can you give any source giving any other explanation of the above facts? If not, the plagiarism view must stand. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhimars (talk • contribs) 06:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Abhnimars: Please refrain from making personal attacks on Fowler & fowler and other editors, Please avoid using phrases like "eurocentric history" and "exposing western idols". This extremist language suggests you have another agenda: please remember that Bharatveer and those using his IP are still under editing restrictions from ArbCom. Please avoid referring to incidents on online forums or questions asked during talks, since these fail WP:RS. Please also read WP:V, WP:UNDUE, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:BLP. All the articles you cite above are unacceptable as evidence on WP - some might actually be illegal. Otherwise, why not try editing another WP article some time? Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 06:14, 25 July 2008 (UTC)