Mohammed El Naschie

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Mohammed Saladin El Naschie (* 1943 in Cairo ) is an Egyptian mathematician , physicist and engineer . He was editor-in-chief of Chaos, Solitons & Fractals magazine and held positions at various European and Egyptian universities. Criticism came because of the alleged pseudoscientific character of his work, in which numerology is operated under the guise of mathematics .

El Naschie's work focuses on his e-infinity theory, a fractal-cosmological world formula . He claims that his theory models a harmonious production of quarks and elementary particles through a fractal spacetime centered on a golden section . El Naschie's theories are viewed as scientifically worthless, mathematicians are of the opinion that El Naschie's theories and statements make no sense. The E-Infinity Theory has become the subject of numerous discussions on the Internet, critics are of the opinion that the E-Infinity Theory is advertised by a large number of sock puppets .

Life

According to his own statements, El Naschie attended training centers in Hamburg and Hanover. He received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of London . He claims to be a " Distinguished Fellow " of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University , which, according to a report in the journal Nature, has been denied. He also claims to be a senior advisor to the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Science and Technology; there is no independent confirmation.

El Naschie is the author of numerous articles in scientific journals. To date, he has published over 300 papers mainly dealing with the E-Infinity theory, some papers dealing with quantum mechanics and nonlinear dynamics .

Characteristic of El Naschie's work is numerology and the citing of approximate numerical similarities.

Tying a knot on a rope shortens the end to finish the length. This reduction can be used to measure the so-called open thickness energy of nodes. There is an incredible correlation between this energy and particle physics.
The value 78.541020 is very similar to 8p 2 = 78.956835 and could be understood as the dimension of a fuzzy extraordinary E6 Lie group , while the rounded value 78 is 78 as is known.

His theses are largely unimportant. On MathSciNet , one of the American Mathematical Society collection published reviews mathematical works, one reviewer commented on remarks about the quantum gravity and the Cantorianische spacetime : "This work gives the impression to the reviewers that it contains no math" .

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals

El Naschie took over the helm of Chaos, Solitons & Fractals after the magazine was threatened with discontinuation due to the decreasing number of articles submitted. Although the magazine was published by Elsevier , there was no closer control of El Naschie's page guidance.

El Naschie used the magazine largely to publish his own articles. Volume 38, No. 5 of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals alone contained five articles by El Naschie that had not been peer-reviewed . As El Naschie frequently quoted himself, the journal soon had a higher impact factor than any qualified mathematical journal. His editorial practices have been criticized by Douglas Arnold , President of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics , among others .

The Elsevier-Verlag “bundles” its magazines and sells them as a complete package to its customers at a lower price. Since the costs for the published journals with z. If, for example, US $ 4,500 for an unbundled annual subscription to Chaos, Solitons & Fractals are high, this distribution system was attractive to customers. The non-acceptance of individual journals was not possible, which is why Chaos, Solitons and Fractals came into the holdings of numerous university libraries regardless of their unscientific content.

In the course of 2008, based on an article by the mathematician John Baez, criticism of El Naschie's way of working and the Elsevier publishing house, which despite its high sales prices, did not carry out any quality control and had promoted the distribution of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals through its sales practice, increased. The editors of the Elsevier magazine Topology resigned in protest.

The criticism was picked up by Nature magazine and several non-science media, including the New York Times Slashdot and Die Zeit. In response to the criticism, Elsevier removed El Naschie from his post. A lawsuit by El Naschies against Nature and the author Quirin Schiermeier for defamation was dismissed on July 6, 2012.

As a consequence of the events surrounding El Naschie, changes to the impact factor and the principle of evaluating scientists, universities and journals on the basis of the number of citations were requested. In addition to his high impact factor, El Naschie had, through his self-citations, raised the University of Alexandria into the top 200 list of the world’s university rankings by the Times Higher Education , including fourth place in citations .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Q. Schiermeier: Self Publishing Author set to retire. In: Nature. Volume 456, No. 7221, 2008, p. 432. doi: 10.1038 / 456432a
  2. ↑ a b Slashdot: Crackpot Scandal in Mathematics
  3. ↑ a b Baez on his homepage n-Category Cafe
  4. ↑ The El Naschies homepage
  5. ↑ a b The Felix Krull of mathematics. ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The time . March 27, 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zeit.de
  6. ↑ The "El Naschie Watchblog" on the discussions of the E-Infinity theory.
  7. ↑ a b M. S. El Naschie: Fuzzy multi-instanton knots in the fabric of space-time and Dirac's vacuum fluctuation. In: Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. Volume 38, No. 5, December 2008, pp. 1260-1268.
  8. ↑ MathSciNet MR1428296
  9. ↑ L'Affaire El Naschie
  10. ↑ SIAM: Integrity Under Attack: The State of Scholarly Publishing ( Memento of the original from August 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.siam.org
  11. ↑ Elsevier: Chaos, Solitons and Fractals
  12. ↑ a b NYTimes: Questionable Science Behind Academic Rankings
  13. ^ Court Judgment in Nature / El Naschie Case , Blog "Not Even Wrong", July 7, 2012
  14. ^ Times Higher Education Ranking of World Universities.
personal data
SURNAME El Naschie, Mohammed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES El Naschie, Mohammed Saladin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian mathematician, physicist and engineer
DATE OF BIRTH 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Cairo