My PhD thesis, dumbed down

September 19, 2015

If less than five people did a certain thing, then is it not the case that five or more people did that thing? It depends on the thing.

That’s what I would reply to the question posed in this hilarious AskReddit thread: “PhD’s of Reddit: What is a dumbed down summary of your thesis?”

There are some real gems in there. Some of them actually managed to teach me something:

Making new magnets from old magnets because we’re running out of magnets.
– IAmAHiggsBoson

People trying meditation for the first time get aroused.
– PainMatrix

Others, less so:

Sand washes away. Don’t build important stuff on it.
– zoidy-1

The funniest ones (to me) are the ones that subtly convey (by implicature or by presupposition, it appears) that their dissertation was a disaster, pointless, inconclusive, etc.

You can make antimatter move in strange ways if you set your equipment up wrong.
– DrTBag

Does music express emotions or just elicit them? Read the next 200 pages to not find out.
– welldogmycats

People sometimes think about animals as if they’re people. People like those animals a little more than regular animals. Except when they don’t. I can’t believe they gave me a PhD.
– too_many_mangos

Be sure to also check out lol my thesis for more hilarity.

Bonus summary: If less than five people did a certain thing, then is it possible that no one did that thing? It still depends on the thing.