# Reducing a college thesis to 1 sentence **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 4, 2014, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904 "2014-01-04T21:13:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/21 "2014-01-05T18:21:38Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > The one for my master’s project paper could be boiled down to: > > “If you don’t give a learning algorithm enough data, it will have shitty results.” Which applies to wetware systems as well as others. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/22 "2014-01-05T18:26:52Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > My dad was in military civil service for most of his postwar life, and he boiled the endless papers and reports down to one story: > > Researchers taught a grasshopper to jump when they said, “Jump!” Then they cut off its front legs. “Jump!” The grasshopper jumped, a little awkwardly. They cut off its middle legs. “Jump!” The grasshopper flopped over in an attempt to jump. They cut off its rear legs. “Jump!” The grasshopper did nothing. > > Conclusion? > > “Grasshoppers without legs can’t hear.” I’ve heard this, but it was about the Soviet government’s scientists and cockroaches. Are you sure that isn’t an urban legend? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/23 "2014-01-05T18:40:46Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > I’ve heard this, but it was about the Soviet government’s scientists and cockroaches. Are you sure that isn’t an urban legend? Very sure. Because it’s a joke. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/24 "2014-01-05T19:21:08Z")
My Masters thesis in one sentence. There’s a shitload of stuff on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/25 "2014-01-05T20:21:06Z")
_“As per my professor’s pet theory, various people should be shot in the face.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/26 "2014-01-05T20:23:36Z")
There’s this thing that happens in fruit flies that no one really cares about, but we’ve figured out how to make a tenuous connection to a human disease in a vain attempt to get people to pay attention. Anyway, we had an idea that maybe this thing was affected by the protein we study in the lab, so I checked. It turns out that it has nothing at all to do with it in any way, so instead here’s a pile of data that implies that it perhaps involves these two other proteins that just happen to be much sexier and attractive to funding agencies. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/27 "2014-01-05T20:54:59Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > There’s this thing that happens in fruit flies that no one really cares about, but we’ve figured out how to make a tenuous connection to a human disease in a vain attempt to get people to pay attention. Anyway, we had an idea that maybe this thing was affected by the protein we study in the lab, so I checked. It turns out that it has nothing at all to do with it in any way, so instead here’s a pile of data that implies that it perhaps involves these two other proteins that just happen to be much sexier and attractive to funding agencies. “…and may lead to a cure for cancer.” Never forget that in grant proposals. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/28 "2014-01-06T02:21:19Z")
Well you asked, so here goes. Does anyone here, except me, have any idea what any of it means? “In degrees 2,3, and 4, the Harrison cohomology groups of a commutative algebra over a field of characteristic 0 are retracts of the Hochschild cohomology groups.” ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/29 "2014-01-06T02:30:27Z")
I know what a group and a field are. I’ve worked with vector spaces and Grassman algebras, but I don’t know the general definition of an algebra. I think I used to know what a homology was, but beyond that I am lost. When things get that technical and abstract, it is hard to put it into a sentence that others can understand. ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/30 "2014-01-06T04:23:13Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Well you asked, so here goes. Does anyone here, except me, have any idea what any of it means? > > “In degrees 2,3, and 4, the Harrison cohomology groups of a commutative algebra over a field of characteristic 0 are retracts of the Hochschild cohomology groups.” Yes, but only after having to look up Harrison cohomology. 🙂 (In fact, the reference I found refers to a computation in dimensions \<= 4 from a certain doctoral thesis. I hope that’s yours, since it sounds like a nifty result.) Mine was pretty uninteresting: “Fundamental groups of a particular class of closed manifolds have a certain kind of regularity that looks interesting but is nothing of the sort; in fact, it’s a complete dead end.” ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/31 "2014-01-06T07:57:58Z")
My parents spent 120,000 on my education and all they got was this lousy sentence. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/32 "2014-01-06T10:06:55Z")
My undergrad senior thesis: Physics students write better scientific lab reports if they have a rubric and practice it several times. My masters thesis: students learn science well in groups with hands on activities. Not funny. Really quite boring and predictable. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/33 "2014-01-06T10:59:25Z")
My Big Published Paper: Picking the right method to run a bunch of chemical predictions which will work better once we get bigger computers. My undergrad project: Picking the right method to run a bunch of statistical calculations; this will work better if the computer used has more than one hamster. Yeah, there was a theme to it. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/34 "2014-01-06T17:39:39Z")
> [@Itself](#): > > Yes, but only after having to look up Harrison cohomology. 🙂 (In fact, the reference I found refers to a computation in dimensions \<= 4 from a certain doctoral thesis. I hope that’s yours, since it sounds like a nifty result.) > > Mine was pretty uninteresting: “Fundamental groups of a particular class of closed manifolds have a certain kind of regularity that looks interesting but is nothing of the sort; in fact, it’s a complete dead end.” Well since you asked and I have no reason to hide my identity, I will say that yes it was mine. Whether or not it was nifty is in the eyes of the beholder. It was an insane computation (it involved showing that linear combination of all 24 elements of S\_4 was idempotent–by squaring it). Five years later I found a non-computational proof that worked in arbitrary dimensions and that was a neat result. And resulted in the discovery of a connected chain of idempotents, one in each S\_n. That was a really nifty result. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/35 "2014-01-07T05:11:30Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Well since you asked and I have no reason to hide my identity, I will say that yes it was mine. Cool. I found the same reference to your thesis work. (I still have no clue what a Harrison cohomology is). We have some very impressive members here. Congratulations on a distiguished career in mathematics. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/36 "2014-01-07T06:39:06Z")
Undergrad: Helicopters where opposite blades are identical but adjacent ones are not will shake themselves to death less than when they are all identical. Masters: You can model shape memory alloys as a combination of physical springs, friction elements, and dashpots, which for some reason may be good. Doctoral: If you wiggle helicopter blades in a special way they will make less noise, and here is a quick way to see how much. ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/37 "2014-01-07T16:16:25Z")
I’m ashamed to submit this one because the rest of you are so witty. First Master’s Thesis: Rare books/documents/papery materials conservatorship requires extensive knowledge of chemistry, some art supplies, special lighting, climate control, and really steady hands. Masters Project: I manufactured paper using techniques of the 1700s. Oh, Gd, I’m dull. ---
**Author:** ![howlcat1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5e9695/32.png) [@howlcat1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/howlcat1)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/38 "2014-01-07T16:45:33Z")
Kierkegaard. Or how I learned to love the bomb ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/39 "2014-01-07T17:08:05Z")
Masters: “It’s possible to use swarm-based optimisation techniques to make virtual animals run a lot faster, but you end up with some really weird animals as a result.” ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904/40 "2014-01-08T00:27:14Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Well since you asked and I have no reason to hide my identity, I will say that yes it was mine. Whether or not it was nifty is in the eyes of the beholder. It was an insane computation (it involved showing that linear combination of all 24 elements of S\_4 was idempotent–by squaring it). > > Five years later I found a non-computational proof that worked in arbitrary dimensions and that was a neat result. And resulted in the discovery of a connected chain of idempotents, one in each S\_n. That was a really nifty result. Spiffy, I’ll have to look that up when I get a chance (and look up Harrison cohomology in more detail, which I don’t think I’ve seen at all outside of this context). Thanks! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reducing-a-college-thesis-to-1-sentence/677904.md?page=3)