[This note is from Victor Miller, from about two weeks ago. --rcs] Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 09:40:54 -0400 From: "victor miller" <victorsmiller@gmail.com> Barry Mazur's was only 5 pages long. In it he proved the "Generalized Schoenflies Conjecture". The proof took essentially 1/2 page, but there was another 5 pages or so, in giving the technical ideas in the proof. Victor On 11/4/07, Dan Asimov <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:

Guy asks:

<< Apologies if this has been asked before. I'm wondering what have been the shortest successfully submitted Ph.D. theses in mathematics.

...

...

Urk, mine was pretty short -- just 28 double-spaced typewritten pages. Google claims there's something about this in the Nov. 2003 College Mathematics Journal, which I don't have access to at the moment.

(Can someone please get ahold of that and report what it says on the subject?)

On the other hand, someone claimed on some discussion board that (presumably William Rowan) Hamilton's Ph.D. thesis was only one page long.

--Dan

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