
Math prof challenges granting of PhD to unqualified student in court - agconway
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/court-battle-over-phd-106366028.html
======
eqdw
To everyone, from someone who has dealt with this man personally:

I don't know the specifics of the situation. I generally assume I'm only
getting part of the story when I read these sorts of articles. However,
knowing Dr. Lukacs, he is most probably correct and in the right on (almost?)
everything he is saying, and he is most certainly being royally f __*'d over
by the university.

That being said, it was just a matter of time until he went up against someone
who didn't appreciate his lack of social skills. He is certainly not a
diplomatic person by any means. He's one of those guys who would go up to you,
tell you how everything about you is wrong (assuming you are in fact wrong),
and be honestly perplexed when you get upset about it.

In short, he reminds me of that scene in The Big Lebowski: "You're not wrong,
Walter, YOU'RE JUST AN ASSHOLE". This guy is Walter. He's not wrong, but his
lack of tact pissed off someone in power over him.

I hope he comes out of this on top, because (as far as I can tell) he didn't
do anything wrong, and even if his conduct was in error, seriously university,
thanks for giving my degree a bad reputation (by proxy; I got CS, not math).

Just some insight from someone who knows the guy (me!). Hope you find it
interesting

~~~
DevX101
People like Lukacs need to find organizations that are compatible with their
irreverence. Although merit goes a long way, academia is VERY political
especially when it comes to making tenure decisions.

Most large companies don't have a place for him either. Telling your boss
directly he's wrong (even if he is) is a career staller, and going over his
head will definitely give you enemies.

There are probably quite a few "Walters" here on HN who said "F __* it, I'll
do my own startup".

~~~
nphase
_People like Lukacs need to find organizations that are compatible with their
irreverence. Although merit goes a long way, academia is VERY political
especially when it comes to making tenure decisions._

It's funny that you would say that, because it seems there are few
environments better suited to people like Lukacs than academia. The way they
see it: sure, the politics is a pain in the ass, but at least they're in an
environment where they can make very substantial contributions to the world.
The pain of politics is worth doing what they love.

Disclosure: my father is a very well known research professor in his field,
who is always complaining about campus politics. "So why are you still there?"
always gets the response, "Where else could I go to do this?" If you happen to
know somewhere else, let us know.

~~~
jfager
You didn't say what your father actually researches, but there are tons of
cushy research jobs in industry, if you're smart enough. Many big tech
companies (MS, Google, IBM) will hire people to work on whatever they want,
simply to prevent them from working for a competitor or to be able to drop
names when recruiting other people.

~~~
nphase
Oh, oops! He's in mechanical engineering, and deals primarily with
turbomachinery efficiency and aerodynamics.

------
DevX101
The most interesting thing in this article was the Math professor himself.

He received his PhD at age 20. He forced Air Canada to change it's policy that
claimed the airline wasn't responsible for lost luggage. He's standing up for
the integrity of his profession. And he's only 27.

I hope he continues to contribute to society outside of the domain of
theoretical maths.

~~~
joshrule
Right on. People who care enough to act when mistreated are becoming
increasingly rare, it seems. Plenty are willing to complain, but complaining
is not really acting. It's pointing out a problem, not trying to fix it.

The question is, though, how do we positively reward this type of action? For
example, if the professor is fired, my guess is that he will have a hard time
finding a job somewhere else, because he has _rocked the boat_. But, he
deserves _much_ better than that. How do we solve that?

~~~
cperciva
_For example, if the professor is fired, my guess is that he will have a hard
time finding a job somewhere else..._

I doubt it. In fact, I suspect the first thought of every mathematics
department chair in Canada upon reading this story was "Lukacs is running into
problems at Manitoba? Is there any way we can get him to come here instead?"

------
Nitramp
This seems fundamentally flawed: where do you draw the line between a
psychological condition and personal ineptitude?

"Exam anxiety" sounds a lot like "cannot focus in situations where results are
expected". I would have thought that that's actually a reasonable requirement
for a PhD.

~~~
acabal
I don't know... how often will one be taking exams as an official PhD holder?
Exams are sometimes better at measuring how one takes exams than what one
knows.

Take job interviews for example. I hold a CS degree from a major university
and my business is a website that so far gets 500,000 pageviews a month and is
profitable. It was coded and designed by me from scratch; its server is
administered and monitored by me; its community and customer support is
managed by me. Given these accomplishments I would say I have a reasonable
grasp of the art of web programming. But put me in a job interview situation
where an interviewer asks me to write an implementation of something basic
like a linked list and I'll probably manage to screw it up somehow. Then when
I get sent home and I sit down in front of my monitor, I'll have it done in 5
minutes. Does my being unable to cope with programming interview situations
make me a bad programmer? Does being unable to cope with a math exam make one
a bad math researcher?

Edit: though on the whole I do agree that degrees nowadays are being handed
out like candy and far to often to people completely undeserving of them.

~~~
CWuestefeld
And you may well be a very competent programmer, and deserve that recognition.

But the recognition of a PhD is something altogether different. It's not
something that any person has a _right_ to. And it seems to me that the only
way to get one ought to be to _prove_ that one has earned it, and deserves it.
To have a shortcut that says "he _could_ have earned it but for this
disability" changes the degree from one of recognizing achievement to a
(subjective) judgment of potential.

~~~
greenlblue
The way universities are pumping out PhDs it's not surprising that a whole
bunch of requirement are simply being swept under the rug. Universities
figured out a long time ago that graduate students are basically slave labor
and they accept way too many students that fumble their way through the
program without really accomplishing anything. So get off your high horse and
put the blame where it should be placed.

------
swalberg
It seems there's more to it than just the exam thing.

In August 2010 (according to the timeline on the left of the article), one of
the student's undergrad courses was upgraded to a PhD level course.

Suspension of the prof for violating student's privacy by complaining about
the case.

Keep in mind this is the same University of Manitoba that will turn over your
personal information to bill collectors should you not pay a parking ticket.

(UofM Computer Engineering 1998)

~~~
metageek
> _turn over your personal information to bill collectors_

The spokesman pointed out that this was health-related information (since the
student had a doctor diagnose his test anxiety); it'd be reasonable to treat
that more carefully.

~~~
invisible
I think him having "exam anxiety" hardly counts for health-related. Where do
we draw the line on what is health-related and what is pertinent information?

~~~
metageek
> _I think him having "exam anxiety" hardly counts for health-related._

I tend to agree, but apparently the university believes in it, and requires a
doctor's note. Given that, I can't really be surprised that they treat it as
health information.

~~~
jmm
Testing related diagnoses should be viewed with a bit of skepticism, I think.
I worked in test prep for five years, and our [high end] clientele had quite a
way of paying their way to various diagnoses that granted extended time on the
P/SAT, ACT, or whatever. (And in case you're curious, colleges are unable to
view whether a student took the SAT under extended time conditions or not.)

That said, "exam anxiety" might be a new one to try in the college admissions
racket.

------
raganwald
The Maclean's article adds some interesting points.

[http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/01/umanitoba%E2%80%94phd-
dip...](http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/01/umanitoba%E2%80%94phd-diploma-
mill/)

Lukacs wasn't on the board when this student was exempted from the exam
requirement or had his course upgraded. Another professor resigned in protest
and Lukacs took his place.

He had never met the student until he served the student with papers for the
lawsuit.

The University says it has suspended Lukacs without pay for violating the
student's privacy by naming the student and discussing the student's medical
conditions in the lawsuit. UofM claims this is a violation of academic privacy
and a violation of the law concerning medical privacy.

Lukacs claims he is acting so that his good name is not sullied by being
associated with a degree mill. Interesting, to say the least. I see many
laudatory comments here. Are other universities as interested in having Lukacs
on board as posters here would suggest? If so, why not go to a place with the
standards he admires, instead of trying to carry UofM on his shoulders?

~~~
rbanffy
> why not go to a place with the standards he admires, instead of trying to
> carry UofM on his shoulders?

Because if he can fix UofM others will benefit. If he moves on, nobody will.
There is competitive pressures on universities to become degree mills and it
must be stopped.

------
Splines
I'm a graduate of the U of M, and managed to do so despite being a lazy idiot.
This student should be ashamed that they've resorted to bending the rules of
the system to complete their degree.

~~~
viggity
its not even just a degree, they're bending the rules for a PhD, the rigor of
which is much greater than a BA or a BS

------
KoZeN
Unfortunately this happens more often than the public are aware of. I'm
familiar with a handful of PhD holders who didn't even attend the University
that granted it. It's a shame that these qualifications can be purchased as it
completely obliterates the integrity of the title.

~~~
Nitramp
While the cases you cite are probably different, not all countries require
people to actually attend a University where they get their Doctorate. E.g.
here in Germany, you are required to write a Doctor's thesis (that needs to be
accepted by a Professor) and pass an oral exam, but there are usually no
required courses.

I think historically it was not uncommon for people to just submit a thesis,
but nowadays nearly everyone getting a PhD will do so while being at the
University and in close collaboration with his Doctoral advisor.

~~~
tjr
_E.g. here in Germany, you are required to write a Doctor's thesis (that needs
to be accepted by a Professor) and pass an oral exam, but there are usually no
required courses._

Any specific examples of this? (In Germany or elsewhere?)

~~~
Nitramp
Well, you can look at the individual University's pages. Having courses in a
PhD, or having something like a "PhD program" in general, is still very rare.

The common model is to take a job as an assistant researcher with the chair of
your Professor, work on your PhD thesis and papers 50% of the time, and be
treated like cheap slave labour by your professor the other 95% (sic!) of the
time.

------
jgrahamc
Part of me would like to feel for the student who may have a genuine illness,
but the other part of me that has a doctorate knows that it was very, very
hard and I totally lost it in my second year and went off around the US for 6
weeks to get my head clear.

The bottom line is that a doctorate is not an easy thing to get, it's
stressful and some people probably can't take the stress.

~~~
random42
_The bottom line is that a doctorate is not an easy thing to get, it's
stressful and some people probably can't take the stress._

Then, Unfortunately, they should not get doctorate. (I realize this sounds
awful and unfair, but it is actually the only fair deal)

~~~
eqdw
I agree it sounds awful, but I agree that you are correct. Not everyone who
wants a PhD can just get one. It is damn hard work. You devote your ENTIRE
CAREER and in some cases life, to your Ph.D. It's not fair to the others who
are working hard if you are just given one.

~~~
seanc
I don't have a PhD but I do have a black belt, which shares some
characteristics.

Specifically, I see people from time to time who I feel perhaps did not work
as hard for their rank as I did for mine.

The lesson I've learned in the end is don't trust credentials too much. If you
want to find out what kind of martial artist someone is, don't look at the
belt, look at how they train.

I would imagine the same can be said for a PhD. Don't look at the degree, read
the research!

~~~
random42
Its not feasible to "test" knowledge always. Many degrees, are the
qualification to practice a particular profession.

Think about how bad it would be, if medical degree holders do not know how to
treat people, pilot license holder do not know how to fly airplanes or civil
engineer degree holder not knowing what alleviation is safe for the suspension
bridge. The only way patients/flying authorities/ government authorities etc.
would know if a doctor/pilot/engineer is qualified to carryout the assigned
task, if the degree actually reflect a reasonable level of proficiency in the
particular field.

~~~
seanc
I do agree that the certification process for those important professions
plays an important part in ensuring public safety. I offered my comment as a
path to feeling a bit better about seeing other people who share one's
credentials without, it seems, achieving quite the same standard.

I would also offer however, that even those professions do not completely
trust the degree. Each one of those professions has a number of oversight and
regulation bodies which are inconstant contact with the the practitioners.
Specifically:

\- Malpractice insurers who specify covered and non-covered activities

\- Professional colleges which review practitioners regularly \- the FAA

And so forth.

~~~
pyre

      > - Malpractice insurers who specify covered and
      > non-covered activities
    

Ensuring that someone (at least on a basic level) knows their field does _not_
ensure how they will act ones they are certified.

------
joshrule
Taken with the recent <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1843491>, I'm a bit
concerned.

As time moves forward, shouldn't we be setting the bar higher, not continually
dropping it lower and lower? Why, in so many areas, are standards sliding
rather than getting stronger (not just in education, but in government and
some industries, too)?

What's happening to personal responsibility and a clear set of rules by which
to play the game? Am I wrong in seeing things this way?

~~~
roel_v
The standards are being lowered for several reasons. One is that the
university gets paid per student they graduate (in most countries in Western
Europe that I know about). Another is that politicians feel they need to raise
the % of people with degrees in their region/country so they pressure
universities to 'accommodate' students as much as possible. Couple this with
top positions in universities increasingly being given to non-academics, but
rather bureaucrat politicians who get these positions as a reward for years of
service to their party and in these roles fill the last few years until their
retirement with a cushy, well paid job in which they mostly try to run the
university as a company (not being hindered by the fact that they know nothing
about actually running a business), and you get every lower academic
standards.

And then finally, and this may not be the majority of cases but I've seen this
happen from very close myself, a part of the problem is the many exchange
students who come from developing countries and pay big bucks for their
studies. These people have sometimes scraped together everything they and
their extended families have to go to the West. If they fail their program, to
them it feels like they might as well have been executed on the spot. There's
no way they can go back to their countries without a degree. I've seen people
on the brink of suicide over the thought of failing exams and having to go
back (yes, other ('native') students also get exam anxiety, I'm not dismissing
those).

So imagine being a professor and having to grade a thesis of a guy that is
only a few years younger than you are (these students often come after several
years of working and saving), with a wife and a family to support. You know he
doesn't live up to the standards of the program. You also know that everybody
else knows (academics at universities in the area) so nobody's going to give
him a postdoc anyway. So there's no real harm in giving him the degree, at
least not until 'the work gets out' and all diplomas devaluated. The student
will most likely be going back to where he came from, where he's going to be
welcomed as a genius and offered a cushy government or consulting job. All in
all, _there_ he's still going to be quite good, at least compared to the other
people at the places that would hire him (yes there are very bright Indian,
Chinese etc. students who are just as good as any Western student, I'm not
disparaging Asians in general - I'm talking about this specific subset of
'academic refugee students').

And then consider that if you fail this guy, you know you're basically doing
the equivalent of a 'thumbs down' in a Roman amphitheater. That's a tough
decision to make. I know, this sort of factors shouldn't come into play, but
that's easy to say from behind a desk far far away from this situation. I've
seen people seriously struggle with this dilemma, and I've seen choices being
made in both directions. It's heart wrenching, and it makes people think
several times before accepting a next student who may turn out this way.

------
brudgers
It's the logical extension of classroom inclusion (and mainstreaming) policies
for students with learning disabilities.

Expect to see more of it as it gained traction among in US colleges of
education about 20 years ago - particularly in primary education departments.

On the bright side, at least it's not an MD.

Edit: I believe that in general mainstreaming and inclusion are a good public
policy concept with a really thorny ethical issue attached. The thorny issue
is, at what point you tell the student, "We were only kidding. You're not
really smart enough to continue on the academic path with your classmates."

In the US its rise coincided with that of facilitated communication in the
classroom for autistic individuals.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication>

Both ideas gained a lot of traction in primary education departments in the
early 90's [US]. Primary educators loved Mainstreaming because they were able
to pretend the thorny issue didn't exist and let it be dealt with at the
secondary level.

As with any bureaucracy, secondary educators have an incentive to continue to
pass the buck and little to gain by kicking the mayor's autistic nephew out of
AP calculus (so to speak).

~~~
jonhendry
So what would you do if Stephen Hawking's disability had emerged a few years
earlier?

Keep him out of university?

~~~
brudgers
My understanding is that cognitive impairment is not typical for people
afflicted with muscular dystrophy.

But I am not sufficiently familiar with the enrollment policies of English
Universities in the 1950's to speculate on a counterfactual.

~~~
jonhendry
I suspect a lot of people as disabled as Mr Hawking is never had the chance
for anyone to discover they weren't cognitively impaired, let alone geniuses.
People would take one look at the twisted limbs and stuff the poor kid off in
a home, and let the kid's brain shrivel.

That's one of the ideas behind mainstreaming: put the kids into mainstream
environments, with assistance as needed, in order to bring out whatever
potential might be there. (Kinda like with 'normal' kids, expose them to art
to bring out artistic talents, etc.)

Mainstreaming is _not_ only about cognitive impairment. It's disabilities in
general. Taking the deaf kid, the kid in a wheelchair, or the kid with a
cognitive impairment, and putting them in classes with non-disabled kids,
rather than isolating them with others 'of their own kind'.

~~~
brudgers
I completely agree that mainstreaming is an appropriate educational strategy
when used correctly. The issue is the competing interests of inclusion of
those with cognitive impairment and upholding academic standards.

At the level of primary education, this competition of interests is easy for
educators to ignore since many of the objectives are social rather than
academic and primary classrooms naturally contain students with widely ranging
levels of cognitive development.

However, at what point do you use absolute achievement rather than relative to
the individual? Middle School? High School? Undergraduate? Graduate?
Professional Licensing?

The article points to a case well down the slippery slope. Replace "PhD in
Math" with "JD" and your at the bottom...unless of course, one advocates
requiring courts to consider the cognitive impairments of an attorneys when
evaluating the merits of their briefs.

The problem is that at some point the consequences of relative standards could
seriously affect other people...that's why chiropractors aren't allowed to
perform open heart surgery.

To cast it in terms of rights, my right to maximize my opportunities does not
trump your right to maximize your opportunities, and vice versa.

------
greenlblue
There must be something else at stake here. This kind of thing happens all the
time and now all of a sudden some professor decides to stand up. This is
definitely not the full story.

~~~
rubentopo
"This kind of thing happens all the time" Perhaps this is why he is standing
up against this?, perhaps he thinks that someone's got a put an end to all
this and that he must take matters into his own hands?

~~~
greenlblue
My point is that math professors as a bunch put up with this kind of stuff all
the time because more than half of the incoming class is just going to be
horribly unprepared for any kind of graduate work. Are the students to blame
for being unprepared? Yes, I think so but there is also the fact that
universities take on way too many graduate students simply because somebody
has to be a TA for all the lower division classes the math department offers.
This is just bureaucratic bloat and a byproduct of this bureaucratic bloat is
that people who shouldn't get a PhD get pushed through the system because it
keeps the attrition rate down, at least on paper. So it's great that this guy
is standing up for what he believes in but the problem is more systemic and I
doubt his one man stand against one student is going to make much difference
to how the universities currently operate.

~~~
rbanffy
> Are the students to blame for being unprepared?

Not really. For many, it's just that it's not "their thing". More that 50% of
the incoming students failed the first semester at the college I attended.
Many tried a couple times and then went away to pursue other careers. I would
never favor dumbing down the curriculum to accommodate people who want to be
professional engineers but can't do math...

One day, I could be flying the planes they designed.

~~~
greenlblue
I'm not favoring dumbing down curricula. I'm favoring honest practices on the
part of the administration to not overcrowd their graduate departments simply
because they have too many lower division class offerings and somebody has to
be a TA for those classes. It's unfair to everyone involved and the university
is the only one that benefits because they pocket the tuition fees.

------
Nick_C
I'm very surprised by many of the comments here implying that a PhD involves
course work and exams. Is there a difference in PhDs between countries?

Here in Australia, the last degree involving exams and course work is the
Masters. A PhD involves writing a thesis on new and original work under the
supervision of your adviser. It usually takes 2 to 3 years. There are no
exams.

I'd be interested to hear the perspective of those from the US and Europe.

~~~
Lewisham
In the UK, you don't take classes, because you don't take a Masters. You do
three years in and out. Four if you struggle, but that's it.

What people are talking about here is usually the US system, where your PhD
path includes Masters classes. You get a Masters along the way (I have mine in
a drawer somewhere), but this is incidental along the path to the PhD. It
takes 2-3 years to get those classes out the way, then you're all research.
The system is the same as you are describing, except that Americans don't tend
to split them up in their heads.

~~~
nagrom
It must depend upon your subject and university in the UK. As a physicist, I
have never known a student to obtain a PhD in less than 3 years. My students
have taken 3.5 years minimum. There's one guy in our department who should get
his PhD soon, after 8 years.

What you're describing is maybe how they are funded - but not the reality in
my experience.

------
dfj225
I'm curious about the "exam anxiety" aspect. I've never heard of allowances
for alternate types of examination being made for this before, and I just left
University in the US earlier this year. Is this recognized in the US as well?

Seems like it would be something that's hard to draw the line between a
legitimate psychological issue and normal behavior. I'd venture that nearly
everyone experiences some sort of "exam anxiety".

~~~
araneae
I've taught a fairly large introductory course, and every exam we'd have maybe
1-5% of the class taking a 1.5 or double length exam in a separate room,
depending on the severity of their "disability." I'm not an expert or
anything, but all of these kids looked fine for me. I suspect a lot of them
got their disability certification while in public schooling at the behest of
their parents, who wanted to give them an advantage.

~~~
Lewisham
I don't know. Having TA'd during an exam with the disability cases, I can see
your point (nothing looks physically wrong) but generally I find that they're
given far too much time anyway, they seem to finish within a reasonable
timeframe.

If your exams are written in such a way that they're completely time-dependent
anyway, you have bigger problems with your examination procedures.

------
eqdw
WRT the student with exam anxiety: I can sympathize, as I have some pretty
crippling anxiety (albiet in other areas). However what I have to wonder is
this. If you've got exam anxiety, what happens when you get your PhD, and your
university is pressuring you to publish. "You haven't put out a paper in over
a year. We're giving you 2 months to get on that, if you don't, we'll find
someone who will". What do you do about your 'paper anxiety' then? It really
sucks that you have to deal with this, but the thing is that that's life. If
you can't deal with it now, you're not going to be any better dealing with it
later.

------
Brashman
To be honest, I feel like as long as the student completed a thesis that
deserved a PhD then I think he deserves the degree. A PhD focuses around that
piece of work. The article is unclear about this point but it sounds like the
deficiencies were more with the other requirements that tend to be tacked onto
the degree such as classes and exams.

------
sprout
I think there's an interesting statement being made by this professor about
speed, if the thing in question is really his exams.

I mean, he seems to be making the statement that someone who produces
excellent papers and research but is incapable of coming up with a coherent
response to an arbitrary topic in a short timeframe is unworthy of a PhD.

It seems to me there's a place for people who can't think on their toes, even
among the ranks of the official Doctors.

------
sethg
Disability issues aside, why does the professor have standing to sue in this
issue?

~~~
patio11
If he didn't have standing prior to the disciplinary action, he certainly has
it now. If it becomes an issue, all the lawyers have to do is play connect-
the-dots through a tort tangentially related to academic freedom. (Note: not a
lawyer, not a Canadian, not a Canadian lawyer.)

------
pbhjpbhj
>The University of Manitoba's disability services office last year registered
136 students who have medical certification that they suffer exam anxiety and
must be accommodated with some other form of evaluation.

Doesn't everyone get some sort of "exam anxiety". Isn't ability in exam like
situations part of what is being tested?

Does anyone have info about what the alternate testing methods are. They
should be elective in any case to provide equal opportunity. For example if
the alternative is a extended project and viva then any student should be
allowed to take the alternative. Also the degree transcript should make it
clear how the degree was achieved so that an employer doesn't wrongly assume a
skill (working under [exam] pressure) that the applicant doesn't have.

------
rglovejoy
Maclean's also has an article about this:
[http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/01/umanitoba%E2%80%94phd-
dip...](http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/01/umanitoba%E2%80%94phd-diploma-
mill/)

------
cool-RR
These kind of annoying disputes are a result of people basing their
professional reputation on a degree, instead of basing it on projects.

~~~
michael_dorfman
Huh? Isn't an advanced degree, in this case, just a set of projects? And isn't
the professor in question complaining that some of the projects (i.e., the
exam and one of the courses) were not completed?

~~~
cool-RR
The PhD is a set of projects, but the person is recognized not by the projects
but by the degree. (As in "That guy's a doctor" and not "That's that guy who
built the awesome Foobsnicator project".)

This is what the argument is about here, that the value of the PhD is being
cheapened. If a person was judged by his projects, this would become
irrelevant.

~~~
michael_dorfman
My argument is that it is difficult for casual observers to assess each
individual project, so we as a group outsource this job to an accredited
agency, who verifies that a set of projects has been completed that match a
pre-defined standard.

When I go to a doctor's office, I don't really always have time to investigate
in detail the various projects he undertook.

What's at stake here is that the agency tasked with upholding the standard
(the U of Manitoba) seems to have slackened the agreed-upon standard for the
sets of projects involved to reach the level of "PhD in Mathematics".

~~~
pyre

      > When I go to a doctor's office, I don't really always
      > have time to investigate in detail the various
      > projects he undertook.
    

Is mathematician a registered profession in your locality?

------
peterbotond
i do not have a doctorate. To the most I support prof Lukacs's stand a
doctorate must be earned without a doubt. All the strength and health to him
to continure his quest and keep math the best. He should be a dean, at least.
:-)

------
raganwald
Sayre's Law: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_Law>

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ctkrohn
Fixed link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_Law>

