Chronicle of my exchanges with
Astronomy and Astrophysics. 1997-1998
| In October 1996 we send to the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, directed by James Lequeux, a manuscript of about twenty pages. Immediate return with the simple phrase: - Sorry, we do not publish works of a speculative nature. I then telephone James Lequeux, director of the journal. - I don't understand. Your journal has published papers on dark matter. - Yes, but for dark matter we have observational evidence: strong gravitational lensing effects. - Our model also produces such effects, attributing them to a different cause. It is neither more nor less speculative. I take the liberty of insisting that this work be submitted to an expert. If the latter finds redhibitory conceptual errors, we will not insist. Otherwise, you will publish the work. Agreed? - Agreed. James Lequeux therefore submits the article to an anonymous referee and in February 1997 the latter responds, finding the work from the outset provocating and interesting, estimating that the implications of such a model must be explored. A first series of questions follows. The discussion then begins. The initial article dealt essentially only with the confinement of galaxies. The referee then asks that this work be integrated into a complete cosmological model, that is to say that the question of cosmic evolution be addressed. In eleven months he poses sixty questions. The answers cause the article to swell. But the tone is very cordial and the questions are highly relevant. We thank the referee in passing in one of the letters accompanying our successive submissions (seven versions of the article). And the latter responds: - I appreciate the kind remark about my work. I appreciate the patience of the authors. As the referee wished us to make a link with other works that he cites (those of Foot, Volkas, Berezhiani and Mohapatra, Physical Review 1995, which refer to the solar neutrino deficit and suggest the existence of a "mirror universe") this leads to other developments. The paper having acquired too large a volume, we cut it into two parts, the second dealing with the radiative phase, and other themes. Suddenly we receive, dated December 1, 97, a letter from James Lequeux |
| This letter is accompanied by the referee's last comment, which in no way constitutes a rejection, since the latter specifies, as he had always done "I think the basic idea is interesting". He only asks for further details on the technique used for the numerical simulations, which we were ready to send him. James Lequeux's reaction of irritation is understandable, as, to a certain extent, are those of the other journals. These are flooded with articles. Nature receives one hundred papers a day. After reflection, we decide to shorten this first article by limiting it to sections which, in principle, have already been thoroughly examined by the A & A referee and appear to us to have received his approval. We therefore send the following article to James Lequeux, accompanied by the attached letter: |
Immediate response from Lequeux, who sends the article back to us
without forwarding it to the referee:
Let us specify in passing that the journal
he cites had, a year or more earlier, sent us back the standard response,
probably without any real reading:
Sorry, we don't publish speculative works.
without submission to an expert.
Two years later, back to square one
A few years earlier, towards the end
of the eighties, I was posted at the observatory
of Marseille. I had just spent a few years, with the oral
blessing of Papon (then director general of the Cnrs) and of Combarnous
(director of the Physical Sciences Sector for the engineer) doing
a few years of MHD, which had ended with the
lamentable Rouen affair. See my book Enquête sur les OVNIS. In
1986 there was nothing left but to abandon MHD and to find a
plank of salvation. At the time I had said to my student,
Bertrand Lebrun: "finish writing your thesis, the boat
is sinking, it's all over". I then threw myself on the excellent work by Adler
Schiffer and Bazin "Introduction to General Relativity", Mac Graw
Hill Editions, as I had thrown myself on the Chapman and Cowling
(the mathematical study of non-uniform gases, Princeton University Press)
in 1972. A year later I had publishable works of theoretical cosmology,
having swallowed at great speed the rather
indigestible (tensorial) formalism of General Relativity. I
hurried to send two articles to the journal Modern Physics
Letters A. In the meantime the director of the Observatory, the upright Yvon
Georgelin, had been replaced by James Lequeux. I had
alas not asked Papon, nor Combarnous, to
endorse in writing the fact that being posted in an astronomy observatory
I had devoted myself there to works of MHD (Combarnous
had said to me "where is the problem?"). I knew that
Lequeux did not see it that way. The exclusion from the observatory
of the saucer-freak that I had become seemed to him to be a prophylactic measure
that was called for. Sensing something I made an appointment
with him and explained to him for two hours my works on "a cosmology
with variable constants", in which he did not believe for a single
instant.
In the meantime the leadership of the Cnrs had
changed, following the change of government. Papon and Combarnous had
been ousted, replaced respectively by Feneuille (a type that the Lafarge
cement company had foisted on us) and by a certain
Charpentier. The army was not happy. I had had to
abandon the Rouennais to their fate. Despite the enlightened
advice of the polytechnician Gilbert Payan the whole project had
collapsed after my departure. It therefore asked the Cnrs to
deliver me "bound hand and foot". But first I had to be
extracted from my bunker, the observatory of Marseille where I lived, entrenched
for 14 years. Lequeux was asked to provide the pretext,
which he did through the following letter:
Charpentier picked up the ball on the rebound by
sending me a very brief letter
I am putting an end to your assignment to the observatory
of Marseille. You will henceforth be managed as an isolated
researcher
Fortunately, two days after
receiving Charpentier's letter I obtained the acceptance of
two papers of theoretical cosmology, by the journal Modern Physics
letters A. Everything then turned to confusion. Charpentier telephoned
Lequeux telling him "But, you had told me that he did nothing.
With these two papers of cosmology published in an excellent
journal, I look like a fool. All the more so since I pronounced his exclusion
when the observatory does not fall under my jurisdiction".
That day the Army saw its
prey escape.
Return to Guide Return
to Home page
Number of consultations of this page since March 10
2004: