The Bogdanov affair is an academic dispute regarding the legitimacy of a series of theoretical physics papers written by French twins Igor and Grichka Bogdanov (alternately spelt Bogdanoff). These papers were published in reputable scientific journals, and were alleged by their authors to culminate in a proposed theory for describing what occurred at the Big Bang. The controversy began in 2002 when Max Niedermaier, a physicist at the University of Tours, emailed Ted Newman, a physicist at the University of Pittsburgh, alleging that the twins—who had previously had celebrity status for a science fiction television program in France—had spoofed their PhD theses. Rumors spread on Usenet newsgroups that the work was a deliberate hoax intended to target weaknesses in the peer review system empl