shortest physics dissertation

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PhD: Been There, Done That...

• The World’s Shortest PhD Dissertations

“David Lee Rector’s Ph.D. Thesis is just nine pages long plus bio and bibliography, not to mention double-spaced.” [Source & Photo Credit: Ali Almossawi ]

You have probably seen thick dissertations, too heavy to lift with one hand… but have you ever thought of how short a PhD dissertation can possibly be?

Well, John Edensor Littlewood once famously inquired “ whether a dissertation of 2 lines could deserve and get a Fellowship ” – and he seems to have meant it.

Interestingly, some of the world’s shortest PhD theses / dissertations also count among the most famous ones at the same time. Here are the Top 5 we could identify:

24 pages – John F. Nash: Non-Cooperative Games (1950)

17 pages – Albert Einstein: Eine neue Bestimmung der Moleküldimensionen (1905) / A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions (1906)

16 pages – Edmund Landau: Neuer Beweis der Gleichung (1899) / New Proof of the Equation (2007)

13 pages – Burt Totaro: Milnor K-Theory is the Simplest Part of Algebraic K-Theory (1992)

9 pages – David Lee Rector: An Unstable Adams Spectral Sequence (1966)

Please drop us a line if you know any shorter dissertations than the ones above!

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What was the shortest PhD thesis in physics? [closed]

When I took freshman physics in 1983, my professor made an off-handed comment that Louis de Broglie's PhD thesis on the matter wave was only 3 pages long, and that it was the shortest PhD thesis ever in physics.

For some time now I've been trying to find a PhD of the thesis, which I presume is in German. I can't find it.

I have found the proper reference to his doctoral thesis, though. It appears to be:

L. de Broglie, “Recherches sur la théorie des quanta”, Thèse de doctorat soutenue à Paris, le 25 novembre 1924, Annales de Physique (10e série) III (1925) 22. Reproduced in: L. de Broglie, Recherches sur la théorie des quanta (Fondation Louis de Broglie, Paris, 1992).

I've searched online for that document, and I can't find it. I can find another publication with the same title , but it appears to be a book based on the PhD thesis, and not the thesis itself.

So what is the shortest PhD thesis in physics, and if it is de Broglie's, where can I find it?

• soft-question

• 2 $\begingroup$ I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about publication lengths rather than physics. $\endgroup$ –  Qmechanic ♦ Commented Dec 25, 2019 at 15:04
• 3 $\begingroup$ It does not look like de Broglie's thesis was 3 page long. According to American Journal of Physics 44, 1047 (1976), "De Broglie's thesis was published in its entirety in Ann. Phys. (Paris) 3, 22 ( 1925)." This publication's reprint can be found at tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00006807/document and it is about 80 page long. $\endgroup$ –  akhmeteli Commented Dec 25, 2019 at 15:17
• $\begingroup$ @Qmechanic, this question is about the practice of physics. There is no physics without scientific publications. $\endgroup$ –  vy32 Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 10:50

Not really answering your question but perhaps you'll find this amusing: In 1951, a two-sentence, three-line paper was published in Physical Review by Friedrich Lenz who simply noticed that the (present) proton-electron mass ratio of $1836.12\pm 0.05$ happened to coincide with $6\pi^5=1836.12.$ You can find the article here , or for those without access here is a screenshot .

• 1 $\begingroup$ Thanks for such an informative answer. It has given me so much hope that Physics and Maths aren't just for geniuses. I'm really grateful to you. $\endgroup$ –  user240696 Commented Dec 25, 2019 at 15:05
• $\begingroup$ The Lenz case shows that some physicists, and journal editors, find numerology irresistible. Lens had absolutely no reason for thinking this ratio ought to be that value, and it isn’t. $\endgroup$ –  G. Smith Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 1:15
• $\begingroup$ That is totally cool. Thanks. $\endgroup$ –  vy32 Commented Dec 26, 2019 at 10:50
• $\begingroup$ The Lenz article was fun, but the relationship no longer holds. Alas. $\endgroup$ –  vy32 Commented Dec 27, 2019 at 9:40

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged soft-question history or ask your own question .

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Shortest PhD Thesis: Top 5 shortest PhD Dissertation / Thesis

If you think a PhD thesis or dissertation needs to be thick and have hundred’s of pages, think again. PhD research can be short and incredibly succinct, and may surprise you. What are the world’s shortest PhD thesis?

At this point, the shortest PhD thesis may be David Lee Rector’s “An Unstable Adams Spectral Sequence.” This is a mathematical thesis submitted to MIT in 1966, and is only 9 pages long. 

In this post, let’s look at the 5 shortest PhD theses and dissertations, including from scientific giants like Albert Einstrin and John Nash.

Shortest PhD Thesis / Dissertation

24 pages – John Nash: Non-Cooperative Games (1950)

John Nash’s PhD thesis on “Non-Cooperative Games” is a legendary document in the field of mathematics. Spanning just 26 pages, it’s among the shortest PhD dissertations but don’t let its brevity fool you.

Inside, Nash introduces the Nash equilibrium concept, a revolutionary idea in game theory. His work, done at Princeton, became a cornerstone in economics, earning him the Nobel Prize.

Unlike typical dissertations with lengthy bibliographies and extensive proofs, Nash’s paper is concise, with just two citations.

It’s a masterclass in clarity and brevity, showcasing that sometimes the most profound ideas need only a few pages to be expressed fully.

This piece is a testament to Nash’s brilliance and a reminder of the impact of powerful, succinct academic work.

17 pages – Albert Einstein: A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions (1906)

In Albert Einstein’s doctoral dissertation, “A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions,” he provided a groundbreaking method to calculate the size of molecules, which also affirmed the existence of atoms.

His work combined empirical data with theoretical physics, bridging the gap between abstract concepts and measurable reality.

This thesis is celebrated not just for its scientific significance but for its innovative approach, mixing theory with practical application.

Einstein’s ability to see beyond the established norms and connect disparate ideas set the stage for his later revolutionary theories.

16 pages – Edmund Landau: New Proof of the Equation (1899)

Edmund Landau submitted this thesis in German to graduate with a PhD in mathematics from Friedrich–Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1899. M.J. Coons later translated the thesis into English in 2007.

This made significant contributions to number theory by providing a new proof of an important equation. 

Landau’s work is known for its rigorous approach and clear presentation, setting a standard in mathematical proofs. His thesis is often cited for its methodological innovation and precision, illustrating Landau’s early mastery of complex mathematical concepts.

This work laid the groundwork for his later achievements and established him as a key figure in the mathematical community.

13 pages – Burt Totaro: Milnor K-Theory is the Simplest Part of Algebraic K-Theory (1992)

Burt Totaro’s thesis, “Milnor K-Theory is the Simplest Part of Algebraic K-Theory,” presented in 1992, marks a significant contribution to mathematical science.

In this work, Totaro explored the depths of K-Theory, a field that intertwines algebra and topology, providing insights into the structure and classification of algebraic varieties.

His focus on Milnor K-Theory, a more approachable segment of the broader Algebraic K-Theory, shed light on its foundational elements and implications for complex mathematical structures.

Totaro’s dissertation, recognized for its clarity and depth, helped demystify some of the intricate aspects of K-Theory, making it more accessible to fellow researchers and mathematicians.

His work is a testament to the power of simplifying complex ideas without losing their essence, a skill that has made his thesis a valuable resource in academia.

9 pages – David Lee Rector: An Unstable Adams Spectral Sequence (1966)

And the ultimate winner for the world’s shortest PhD thesis is… David Lee Rector.

This thesis was submitted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1966, for him to earn his doctorate. It is only 9 pages long!

The thesis, “An Unstable Adams Spectral Sequence,” has a special place with mathematicians. Many academic recognize the thesis’s innovative approach to algebraic topology.

His work answered and contributed to the understanding of spectral sequences, a math tool used to compute homotopy groups and solve complex problems in topology. 

Rector’s insights and methods provided a new perspective on the Adams spectral sequence, particularly focusing on its instability and applications.

His contributions have been valuable for further research in the field, offering a deeper understanding of algebraic and topological structures.

How Many Pages Do PhD Thesis Or Dissertation Usually Have?

The length of a PhD thesis or dissertation can vary widely depending on the:

• field of study,
• university requirements, and
• the nature of the research.

Generally, the average length falls between 100 to 300 pages, though there are notable exceptions on both ends of the spectrum.

Some dissertations in the humanities can exceed 300 pages, while those in the sciences may be shorter, focusing more on data and less on extensive literature review.

This is because STEM researches usually present more concise documents, heavily centered on data and succinct conclusions, often resulting in shorter lengths. 

Each thesis or dissertation is unique, tailored to the depth and breadth of its specific inquiry. Long or short does not matter as much as, providing findings that contribute to the present knowledge.

The exploration of the top 5 shortest PhD theses reveals the profound impact succinct work can have on academia. These remarkable documents challenge conventional norms around dissertation length, showing how groundbreaking ideas can be short and succint.

Each thesis stands as a testament to efficiency and clarity in academic research, showcasing how significant contributions to knowledge can emerge from conciseness and precision in scholarly work.

Dr. JW Ong holds academic degrees, including a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from universities in New Zealand, Malaysia, and the UK. He started PhDPursuits.com as a way to share the experience he wish he would have had known before embarking on his PhD.

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Home > Arts and Sciences > Physics > PHYSICSETD

Physics Theses, Dissertations, and Masters Projects

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Ab Initio Computations Of Structural Properties In Solids By Auxiliary Field Quantum Monte Carlo , Siyuan Chen

Constraining Of The Minerνa Medium Energy Neutrino Flux Using Neutrino-Electron Scattering , Luis Zazueta

Experimental Studies Of Neutral Particles And The Isotope Effect In The Edge Of Tokamak Plasmas , Ryan Chaban

From The Hubbard Model To Coulomb Interactions: Quantum Monte Carlo Computations In Strongly Correlated Systems , Zhi-Yu Xiao

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Broadband Infrared Microspectroscopy and Nanospectroscopy of Local Material Properties: Experiment and Modeling , Patrick McArdle

Edge Fueling And Neutral Density Studies Of The Alcator C-Mod Tokamak Using The Solps-Iter Code , Richard M. Reksoatmodjo

Electronic Transport In Topological Superconducting Heterostructures , Joseph Jude Cuozzo

Inclusive and Inelastic Scattering in Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions , Amy Filkins

Investigation Of Stripes, Spin Density Waves And Superconductivity In The Ground State Of The Two-Dimensional Hubbard Model , Hao Xu

Partial Wave Analysis Of Strange Mesons Decaying To K + Π − Π + In The Reaction Γp → K + Π + Π − Λ(1520) And The Commissioning Of The Gluex Dirc Detector , Andrew Hurley

Partial Wave Analysis of the ωπ− Final State Photoproduced at GlueX , Amy Schertz

Quantum Sensing For Low-Light Imaging , Savannah Cuozzo

Radiative Width of K*(892) from Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics , Archana Radhakrishnan

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

AC & DC Zeeman Interferometric Sensing With Ultracold Trapped Atoms On A Chip , Shuangli Du

Calculation Of Gluon Pdf In The Nucleon Using Pseudo-Pdf Formalism With Wilson Flow Technique In LQCD , Md Tanjib Atique Khan

Dihadron Beam Spin Asymmetries On An Unpolarized Hydrogen Target With Clas12 , Timothy Barton Hayward

Excited J-- Resonances In Meson-Meson Scattering From Lattice Qcd , Christopher Johnson

Forward & Off-Forward Parton Distributions From Lattice Qcd , Colin Paul Egerer

Light-Matter Interactions In Quasi-Two-Dimensional Geometries , David James Lahneman

Proton Spin Structure from Simultaneous Monte Carlo Global QCD Analysis , Yiyu Zhou

Radiofrequency Ac Zeeman Trapping For Neutral Atoms , Andrew Peter Rotunno

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

A First-Principles Study of the Nature of the Insulating Gap in VO2 , Christopher Hendriks

Competing And Cooperating Orders In The Three-Band Hubbard Model: A Comprehensive Quantum Monte Carlo And Generalized Hartree-Fock Study , Adam Chiciak

Development Of Quantum Information Tools Based On Multi-Photon Raman Processes In Rb Vapor , Nikunjkumar Prajapati

Experiments And Theory On Dynamical Hamiltononian Monodromy , Matthew Perry Nerem

Growth Engineering And Characterization Of Vanadium Dioxide Films For Ultraviolet Detection , Jason Andrew Creeden

Insulator To Metal Transition Dynamics Of Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films , Scott Madaras

Quantitative Analysis Of EKG And Blood Pressure Waveforms , Denise Erin McKaig

Study Of Scalar Extensions For Physics Beyond The Standard Model , Marco Antonio Merchand Medina

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Beyond the Standard Model: Flavor Symmetry, Nonperturbative Unification, Quantum Gravity, and Dark Matter , Shikha Chaurasia

Electronic Properties of Two-Dimensional Van Der Waals Systems , Yohanes Satrio Gani

Extraction and Parametrization of Isobaric Trinucleon Elastic Cross Sections and Form Factors , Scott Kevin Barcus

Interfacial Forces of 2D Materials at the Oil–Water Interface , William Winsor Dickinson

Scattering a Bose-Einstein Condensate Off a Modulated Barrier , Andrew James Pyle

Topics in Proton Structure: BSM Answers to its Radius Puzzle and Lattice Subtleties within its Momentum Distribution , Michael Chaim Freid

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

A Measurement of Nuclear Effects in Deep Inelastic Scattering in Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions , Anne Norrick

Applications of Lattice Qcd to Hadronic Cp Violation , David Brantley

Charge Dynamics in the Metallic and Superconducting States of the Electron-Doped 122-Type Iron Arsenides , Zhen Xing

Dynamics of Systems With Hamiltonian Monodromy , Daniel Salmon

Exotic Phases in Attractive Fermions: Charge Order, Pairing, and Topological Signatures , Peter Rosenberg

Extensions of the Standard Model Higgs Sector , Richard Keith Thrasher

First Measurements of the Parity-Violating and Beam-Normal Single-Spin Asymmetries in Elastic Electron-Aluminum Scattering , Kurtis David Bartlett

Lattice Qcd for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay: Short Range Operator Contributions , Henry Jose Monge Camacho

Probe of Electroweak Interference Effects in Non-Resonant Inelastic Electron-Proton Scattering , James Franklyn Dowd

Proton Spin Structure from Monte Carlo Global Qcd Analyses , Jacob Ethier

Searching for A Dark Photon in the Hps Experiment , Sebouh Jacob Paul

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

A global normal form for two-dimensional mode conversion , David Gregory Johnston

Computational Methods of Lattice Boltzmann Mhd , Christopher Robert Flint

Computational Studies of Strongly Correlated Quantum Matter , Hao Shi

Determination of the Kinematics of the Qweak Experiment and Investigation of an Atomic Hydrogen Møller Polarimeter , Valerie Marie Gray

Disconnected Diagrams in Lattice Qcd , Arjun Singh Gambhir

Formulating Schwinger-Dyson Equations for Qed Propagators in Minkowski Space , Shaoyang Jia

Highly-Correlated Electron Behavior in Niobium and Niobium Compound Thin Films , Melissa R. Beebe

Infrared Spectroscopy and Nano-Imaging of La0.67Sr0.33Mno3 Films , Peng Xu

Investigation of Local Structures in Cation-Ordered Microwave Dielectric a Solid-State Nmr and First Principle Calculation Study , Rony Gustam Kalfarisi

Measurement of the Elastic Ep Cross Section at Q2 = 0.66, 1.10, 1.51 and 1.65 Gev2 , YANG WANG

Modeling The Gross-Pitaevskii Equation using The Quantum Lattice Gas Method , Armen M. Oganesov

Optical Control of Multi-Photon Coherent Interactions in Rubidium Atoms , Gleb Vladimirovich Romanov

Plasmonic Approaches and Photoemission: Ag-Based Photocathodes , Zhaozhu Li

Quantum and Classical Manifestation of Hamiltonian Monodromy , Chen Chen

Shining Light on The Phase Transitions of Vanadium Dioxide , Tyler J. Huffman

Superconducting Thin Films for The Enhancement of Superconducting Radio Frequency Accelerator Cavities , Matthew Burton

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Ac Zeeman Force with Ultracold Atoms , Charles Fancher

A Measurement of the Parity-Violating Asymmetry in Aluminum and its Contribution to A Measurement of the Proton's Weak Charge , Joshua Allen Magee

An improved measurement of the Muon Neutrino charged current Quasi-Elastic cross-section on Hydrocarbon at Minerva , Dun Zhang

Applications of High Energy Theory to Superconductivity and Cosmic Inflation , Zhen Wang

A Precision Measurement of the Weak Charge of Proton at Low Q^2: Kinematics and Tracking , Siyuan Yang

Compton Scattering Polarimetry for The Determination of the Proton’S Weak Charge Through Measurements of the Parity-Violating Asymmetry of 1H(E,e')P , Juan Carlos Cornejo

Disorder Effects in Dirac Heterostructures , Martin Alexander Rodriguez-Vega

Electron Neutrino Appearance in the Nova Experiment , Ji Liu

Experimental Apparatus for Quantum Pumping with a Bose-Einstein Condensate. , Megan K. Ivory

Investigating Proton Spin Structure: A Measurement of G_2^p at Low Q^2 , Melissa Ann Cummings

Neutrino Flux Prediction for The Numi Beamline , Leonidas Aliaga Soplin

Quantitative Analysis of Periodic Breathing and Very Long Apnea in Preterm Infants. , Mary A. Mohr

Resolution Limits of Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry with Pulsed Source , Guangzhi Qu

Solving Problems of the Standard Model through Scale Invariance, Dark Matter, Inflation and Flavor Symmetry , Raymundo Alberto Ramos

Study of Spatial Structure of Squeezed Vacuum Field , Mi Zhang

Study of Variations of the Dynamics of the Metal-Insulator Transition of Thin Films of Vanadium Dioxide with An Ultra-Fast Laser , Elizabeth Lee Radue

Thin Film Approaches to The Srf Cavity Problem: Fabrication and Characterization of Superconducting Thin Films , Douglas Beringer

Turbulent Particle Transport in H-Mode Plasmas on Diii-D , Xin Wang

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Ballistic atom pumps , Tommy Byrd

Determination of the Proton's Weak Charge via Parity Violating e-p Scattering. , Joshua Russell Hoskins

Electronic properties of chiral two-dimensional materials , Christopher Lawrence Charles Triola

Heavy flavor interactions and spectroscopy from lattice quantum chromodynamics , Zachary S. Brown

Some properties of meson excited states from lattice QCD , Ekaterina V. Mastropas

Sterile Neutrino Search with MINOS. , Alena V. Devan

Ultracold rubidium and potassium system for atom chip-based microwave and RF potentials , Austin R. Ziltz

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Enhancement of MS Signal Processing for Improved Cancer Biomarker Discovery , Qian Si

Whispering-gallery mode resonators for nonlinear and quantum optical applications , Matthew Thomas Simons

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Applications of Holographic Dualities , Dylan Judd Albrecht

A search for a new gauge boson , Eric Lyle Jensen

Experimental Generation and Manipulation of Quantum Squeezed Vacuum via Polarization Self-Rotation in Rb Vapor , Travis Scott Horrom

Low Energy Tests of the Standard Model , Benjamin Carl Rislow

Magnetic Order and Dimensional Crossover in Optical Lattices with Repulsive Interaction , Jie Xu

Multi-meson systems from Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics , Zhifeng Shi

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Dark matter in the heavens and at colliders: Models and constraints , Reinard Primulando

Measurement of Single and Double Spin Asymmetries in p(e, e' pi(+/-,0))X Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic Scattering , Sucheta Shrikant Jawalkar

NMR study of paramagnetic nano-checkerboard superlattices , Christopher andrew Maher

Parity-violating asymmetry in the nucleon to delta transition: A Study of Inelastic Electron Scattering in the G0 Experiment , Carissa Lee Capuano

Studies of polarized and unpolarized helium -3 in the presence of alkali vapor , Kelly Anita Kluttz

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John Nash’s Super Short PhD Thesis: 26 Pages & 2 Citations

in Math | July 9th, 2018 2 Comments

When John Nash wrote  “Non Coop­er­a­tive Games,”   his Ph.D. dis­ser­ta­tion at Prince­ton in 1950, the text of his the­sis ( read it online ) was brief. It ran only 26 pages. And more par­tic­u­lar­ly, it was light on cita­tions. Nash’s diss cit­ed two texts:  John von Neu­mann & Oskar Mor­gen­stern’s  The­o­ry of Games and Eco­nom­ic Behav­ior   (1944), which  essen­tial­ly cre­at­ed game the­o­ry and rev­o­lu­tion­ized the field of eco­nom­ics; the oth­er cit­ed text, “Equi­lib­ri­um Points in n‑Person Games,”  was an arti­cle writ­ten by Nash him­self. And it laid the foun­da­tion for his dis­ser­ta­tion, anoth­er sem­i­nal work in the devel­op­ment of game the­o­ry, for which Nash won the Nobel Prize in Eco­nom­ic Sci­ences in 1994 .

The reward of invent­ing a new field is hav­ing a slim bib­li­og­ra­phy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter,  please find it here . Or fol­low our posts on Threads , Face­book , BlueSky or Mastodon .

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site . It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal , Patre­on , and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in June, 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Short­est-Known Paper Pub­lished in a Seri­ous Math Jour­nal: Two Suc­cinct Sen­tences

The World Record for the Short­est Math Arti­cle: 2 Words

Free Online Math Cours­es

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by OC | Permalink | Comments (2) |

Related posts:

Comments (2), 2 comments so far.

Some­times doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tions are long on foot­notes and bib­li­og­ra­phy — and short on orig­i­nal think­ing. John Nash reversed the aca­d­e­m­ic trend. Reminds me of the Renais­sance painter who was asked for evi­dence of his abil­i­ty to draw. He drew a near-per­fect cir­cle on a can­vas, and was accept­ed by the mas­ter as an appren­tice.

Excel­lent con­cept and articles.…worth reading.…pl for­ward more read­ing

Thanks and regards

Dr B Vijay Sarthi

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So Many Papers, so Little Time

A blog about scientific publishing and academic productivity

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The Shortest Papers Ever Published

This blog post is about short papers. It seems out of place writing a long introduction.

If you ever wondered about the shortest papers ever published, or you just want to take the unique opportunity to read several papers in full within one minute, this post is for you.

Math can be short

Math can be hard and tedious resulting in very long papers. The 1995 proof of Fermat’s last Theorem was 108 pages long.

But math can also be short.

Lander and Parkin’s paper about a conjecture by Euler (related to Fermat’s last Theorem), is probably the dream of everyone ever written a paper: It answers an interesting and important question, it’s correct beyond any doubt,  it’s easy to understand and only two sentences long.

Is there a way to beat that? John Conway and Alexander Soifer submitted a paper in 2005 with the goal to  write the shortest math paper ever.

It is only two words long and contains two distinct proofs of their problem in two figures.

The editors were a bit surprised: “The Monthly publishes exposition of mathematics at many levels, and it contains articles both long and short. Your article, however, is a bit too short to be a good Monthly article. . . A line or two of explanation would really help.”

The authors did not give up and could convince the editors: “I respectfully disagree […] What else is there to explain?” Read the full story .

Empty pages

Can you  write a meaningful paper shorter than 2 words? Probably not. Still, I want to mention the following case report of severe writer’s block, which contribute important zero words to the literature:

Also the following zero-word paper (excluding the abstract) makes an important point. Originally submitted to Nature Chemistry it did not make the cut for publication. But the editors liked it so much that they covered it in their blog  and their production team produced a print PDF for it. It finally appeared in 2016  in the journal “ Chemie in unserer Zeit ” (50(2), 144–145)  published by Wiley. It’s a German journal but don’t worry. The empty pages should be easy to read even in German…

Short abstracts

Abstracts should be short by definition. But some are shorter than others. These are the shortest we could find:

Enough already

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Physics: Writing a Literature Review

Literature reviews.

A  literature review  surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. 

• Provide context for a research paper
• Explore the history and development of a topic
• Examine the scholarly conversation surrounding the topic
• Shows relationships between studies
• Examines gaps in research on the topic

Components 

Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:

• Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?
• Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored
• Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic
• Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature

Conducting a Literature Review

1. choose a topic. define your research questions..

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question.  Remember, it is not a collection of loosely related studies in a field but instead represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.  Is it manageable?
• Begin writing down terms that are related to your question. These will be useful for searches later.
• If you have the opportunity, discuss your topic with your professor.

2. Decide on the scope of your review. 

• How many studies do you need to look at?
• How comprehensive should it be?
• How many years should it cover? 

Tip: This may depend on your assignment.  How many sources does the assignment require?

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches.  

Make a list of the databases you will search.  

Where to find databases:

• Find Databases by Subject
• T he Find Articles tab of this guide

This page contains a list of the most relevant databases for most Physics research. 

4. Conduct your searches and find the literature. Keep track of your searches! 

• Review the abstracts of research studies carefully. This will save you time.
• Write down the searches you conduct in each database so that you may duplicate them if you need to later (or avoid dead-end searches   that you'd forgotten you'd already tried).
• Use the bibliographies and references of research studies you find to locate others.
• Ask your professor or a librarian if you are missing any key works in the field.

5. Review the Literature 

Some questions to help you analyze the research: 

• What was the research question of the study you are reviewing? What were the authors trying to discover?
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings?
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze its literature review, the samples and variables used, the results, and the conclusions. Does the research seem to be complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise?
• If there are conflicting studies, why do you think that is?
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Has this study been cited?; if so, how has it been analyzed?

Tips: 

• Again, review the abstracts carefully.  
• Keep careful notes so that you may track your thought processes during the research process.

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Digital Commons @ USF > College of Arts and Sciences > Physics > Theses and Dissertations

Physics Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2024 2024.

Development and Evaluation of Novel Applications for the Ethos CBCT-Guided Online Adaptive Radiotherapy System , Nour Nasser

Interfacial Magnetism and Anisotropy in Dirac and Weyl Semimetals , Noah Schulz

Theses/Dissertations from 2023 2023

Influence of Thickness and Capping Materials on the Static and Dynamic Properties of Ferrimagnetic Thin Films , Noha Alzahrani

Evaluation of a Prototype Deep Learning-based Autosegmentation Algorithm on a High Quality Database of Head and Neck Cancer Radiotherapy Patients , Jihye Koo

Void Formation in Model Liquids, Polymer Glasses, and Granular Materials , Kai Nan

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Coarse-grained Modeling Studies of Entangled Semiflexible Polymers: Melts, Glasses, and Granular Media , Joseph Fox D. Dietz

Nano-optical imaging of 2D materials in the quantum regime , Hana Nazari Hrim

Magnetism in Doped and Hybrid Two – Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides , Nalaka Kapuruge

First-principles-based Modeling of Energy Converting Properties of Conventional and Emerging Ferroelectrics , Maggie Kingsland

Ultrafast Magneto-optic Study of Exchange Interactions in Magnetic Materials , Hengzhou Liu

Exploring Magneto-Excitons in Bulk and Mono-Layer Semiconductors Using Non-Linear Spectroscopy Techniques , Varun Mapara

2D Lateral Heterostructures for Optoelectronic Devices , Florence Ann Emila Nugera

Light-Controlled Magnetism and Magnetic Sensing in Two-Dimensional Vanadium Dichalcogenides and Related Semiconductors , Valery Ortiz Jimenez

Magnetic and Structural Effects in Interfacial Magnetism: Molecular Magnets and Ferrimagnetic Alloys , Jenae E. Shoup

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

MBE Growth and Modifications of Early Transition Metal Tellurides , Paula Mariel Coelho

Spin Coupling in Magnetic Core - Shell Nanoparticles , Corisa Kons

Third-Order Frequency-Resolved Photon Correlations from a Single Quantum Dot's Resonance Fluorescence , Yamil A. Nieves González

Texturing in Bi 2 Te 3 Alloy Thermoelectric Materials: An Applied Physics Investigation , Oluwagbemiga P. Ojo

Probing the ground state magnetism in materials with competing magnetic interactions , Richa Pokharel Madhogaria

Crystal Structure Prediction of Materials at Extreme Conditions , Ashley S. Williams

Carbon and Other Low-Z materials Under Extreme Conditions , Jonathan T. Willman

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

Laser-Induced Modifications in Two-Dimensional Materials , Tariq Afaneh

The impacts of membrane modulators on membrane material properties at microscopic and nanoscopic levels , Chinta Mani Aryal

Origins of Amyloid Oligomers and Novel Approaches for their Detection , Jeremy Barton

Van der Waals Epitaxy of Ultrathin Early Transition Metal (Ti & V) (di)Selenides: Charge and Magnetic Order in the Ultrathin Limit , Manuel Bonilla Lopez

Spontaneous Raman Scattering Enhancement with Microcavities and Multipass Resonators for Trace Gas Detection , Juan Sebastian Gomez Velez

Atomistic Simulations of Novel Materials at Ambient and High Pressures , Joseph M. Gonzalez

Controlling Properties of Light: Metamaterials Design and Methodology , Darrick Hay

Van Hiele Problem Solving Logic Levels applied to Force Concept Inventory Problems using the Resources Framework , Charles Mason Hemphill

Investigation into Reduced Thermal Conductivity for Half-Heusler Alloys and Identification of Novel Multinary Chalcogenides Possessing Intrinsically Low Thermal Conductivity , Dean Hobbis

A Novel Magnetic Respiratory Sensor for Human Healthcare , Kee Young Hwang

Study of the therapeutic effects of synchronization-modulation of the Na/K pump on muscle fatigue , Jason E. Mast

Growth and Characterization of Spatially Ordered Nanostructures of Functional Materials , Domingo J. Mateo Feliciano

Data-driven Modeling of the Causes and Effects of Interneuronal Dysfunction in Alzheimer’s Disease and Dravet Syndrome , Carlos Perez

Thermoelectric transport control using single phase materials and metamaterial composites , Wencong Shi

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Development and Validation of Advanced Techniques for Treatment Planning and Verification in Megavoltage Radiotherapy , Saeed Ahmed

Phase Evolution and Dynamic Behavior in Materials with Noncollinear Spin Textures , Eleanor M. Clements

Modulations of Lipid Membranes Caused by Antimicrobial Agents and Helix 0 of Endophilin , Nawal Kishore Khadka

Water and Salt at the Lipid-Solvent Interface , James M. Kruczek

The modified Synchronization Modulation technique revealed mechanisms of Na,K-ATPase , Pengfei Liang

First-Principles Simulations of Materials under Extreme Conditions , Kien Nguyen Cong

Amyloid Protein Aggregation and Associated Toxicity , Chamani A. Niyangoda

Novel Macroscopic and Microscopic Concepts in Thermoelectricity , Troy Stedman

Study of Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Via Linear and Non-Linear Spectroscopy , Christopher E. Stevens

Development of a Voxel-Based Monte Carlo Radiation Dosimetry Methodology for a Targeted Alpha Particle Therapy , Christopher John Tichacek

Millimeter-wavelength characterization of the CO emission of comets 174P/Echeclus, 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann, and C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS) , Kacper Wierzchos

Measuring and Utilizing High-Dimensional Information of Optical Fields , Ziyi Zhu

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Surface and Interface Effects of Magnetoimpedance Materials at High Frequency , Tatiana M. Eggers

A Fundamental Investigation into Low Thermal Conductivity p -Type Chalcogenides and Skutterudites with Potential Thermoelectric Applications , Dean Hobbis

Spin Seebeck effect and related phenomena in functional magnetic oxides , Vijaysankar Kalappattil

Towards Fundamental Understanding of Thermoelectric Properties in Novel Materials Using First Principles Simulations , Artem R. Khabibullin

Coarse-grained Modeling Studies of Polymeric and Granular Systems , Hong Trung Nguyen

Characterization of Computed Tomography Radiomic Features using Texture Phantoms , Muhammad Shafiq ul Hassan

Computational Discovery of Energetic Polynitrogen Compounds at High Pressure , Brad A. Steele

Novel Magneto-LC resonance Sensors for Industrial and Bioengineering Applications , Ongard Thiabgoh

Analyzing the effects of Ca 2+ dynamics on mitochondrial function in health and disease , Patrick Toglia

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

18F-FDG PET/CTCT-based Radiomics for the Prediction of Radiochemotherapy Treatment Outcomes of Cervical Cancer , Badereldeen Abdulmajeed Altazi

Interference of Light in Multilayer Metasurfaces: Perfect Absorber and Antireflection Coating , Khagendra Prasad Bhattarai

Photopolymerization Synthesis of Magnetic Nanoparticle Embedded Nanogels for Targeted Biotherapeutic Delivery , Daniel Jonwal Denmark

Application of Metamaterials to RF Energy Harvesting and Infrared Photodetection , Clayton M. Fowler

Complex Electric-Field Induced Phenomena in Ferroelectric/Antiferroelectric Nanowires , Ryan Christopher Herchig

Organometal Halide Perovskite Solar Absorbers and Ferroelectric Nanocomposites for Harvesting Solar Energy , Chaminda Lakmal Hettiarachchi

Growth, characterization, and function of ferroelectric, ferromagnetic thin films and their heterostructures , Mahesh Hordagoda

Surfaces and Epitaxial Films of Corundum-Structured Mixed Metal Oxides. , Alan Richard Kramer

Two Dimensional Layered Materials and Heterostructures, a Surface Science Investigation and Characterization , Yujing Ma

Thermodynamic and Kinetic Aspects of Hen Egg White Lysozyme Amyloid Assembly , Tatiana Miti

Coherent Response of Two Dimensional Electron Gas probed by Two Dimensional Fourier Transform Spectroscopy , Jagannath Paul

Towards Violation of Classical Inequalities using Quantum Dot Resonance Fluorescence , Manoj Peiris

Manipulating Electromagnetic waves with enhanced functionalities using Nonlinear and Chiral Metamaterials , Sinhara Rishi Malinda Silva

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Reduced Dimensionality Effects in Gd-based Magnetocaloric Materials , Hillary Faith Belliveau

Preparation and Characterization of Van der Waals Heterostructures , Horacio Coy Diaz

Biophysical Characterization and Theoretical Analysis of Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Cell Interactions with Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) Hydrogels , Michael C. Cross

Exciton Dynamics and Many Body Interactions in Layered Semiconducting Materials Revealed with Non-linear Coherent Spectroscopy , Prasenjit Dey

The Role of Partial Surface Charge Compensation in the Properties of Ferroelectric and Antiferroelectric Thin Films , Elena Glazkova

Surface Properties of Titanium dioxide and its Structural Modifications by Reactions with Transition Metals , Sandamali Halpegamage

Inquiry of Lipid Membranes Interacting with Functional Peptides and Polyphenol Drug Molecules , Chian Sing Ho

Resonant Light Scattering from Semiconductor Quantum Dots , Kumarasiri Konthasinghe

Structure-Interaction Effects In Novel Nanostructured Materials , Nam B. Le

Polymer Characteristics of Polyelectrolyte Polypeptides , Jorge Monreal

Biophysical Investigation of Amyloid Formation and Their Prion-like Self-replication , Mentor Mulaj

Novel Magnetic Nanostructures for Enhanced Magnetic Hyperthermia Cancer Therapy , Zohreh Nemati Porshokouh

Increasing 18F-FDG PET/CT Capabilities in Radiotherapy for Lung and Esophageal Cancer via Image Feature Analysis , Jasmine Alexandria Oliver

Microcavity Enhanced Raman Scattering , Benjamin James Petrak

Confinement Effects and Magnetic Interactions in Magnetic Nanostructures , Kristen Lee Stojak Repa

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Effects of disorder and low dimensionality on frozen dynamics in Ca3Co2-xMnxO6 , Brian Wesley Casas

Surface Science Studies of Graphene Interfaces , Arjun Dahal

Enhanced Magnetoimpedance and Microwave Absorption Responses of Soft Ferromagnetic Materials for Biodetection and Energy Sensing , Jagannath Devkota

Synthesis, Characterization and Ferroelectric Properties of LN-Type ZnSnO 3 Nanostructures , Corisa Kons

Low Dimensionality Effects in Complex Magnetic Oxides , Paula J. Lampen Kelley

Coherent Digital Holographic Adaptive Optics , Changgeng Liu

In Vacuo Fabrication and Electronic Structure Characterization of Atomic Layer Deposition Thin Films , Michael Schaefer

The Evaluation and Study of Modern Radiation Dosimetry Methods as Applied to Advanced Radiation Therapy Treatments Using Intensity Modulated Megavoltage Photon Beams , Cassandra Stambaugh

Thermal Fluctuations Tunneling in Doped Conjugated Polymers , Troy C. Stedman

Nanomechanical and Nanotribological Characterization of Sub-Micron Polymeric Spheres , Himanshu Kumar Verma

Investigation of Low Thermal Conductivity Materials with Potential for Thermoelectric Applications , Kaya Wei

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Analysis of Critical Behavior in Magnetic Materials , Dustin David Belyea

Magneto-optical Kerr Eect Study of Magnetic Anisotropy in Soft Ferromagnets , Tatiana Marie Eggers

High Dimensional Non-Linear Optimization of Molecular Models , Joseph C. Fogarty

Solvent Dependent Molecular Mechanics: A Case Study Using Type I Collagen , Heather Harper

Photophysical and Electronic Properties of Low-Bandgap Semiconducting Polymers , Evan Lafalce

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As you prepare your final master’s thesis or Ph.D. dissertation, it is vital that you follow all of The Graduate School’s policies and procedures to ensure that the publication of your research adheres to Duke University guidelines. Review the online dissertation guidelines.

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The Shortest Science Paper Ever Published Had No Words, and Was Utterly Brilliant

This article originally appeared in the Newton blog on RealClearScience. You can read the original here . 

Scientists are widely known for their inclination to drone on about esoteric topics in a language of jargon. But every so often, they can surprise us with conciseness. Take these three pithy offerings published in reputable scientific journals, for example:

Shortest Editorial:

In his  contribution  to the November/December 2013 issue of  Evolutionary Anthropology , esteemed biological anthropologist Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the  American Museum of Natural History , did not mince words. In fact, he only wrote two of them: “Enough already.”

The statement concluded a year of back and forths between Tattersall and one of his colleagues, Boston University anthropologist Matt Cartmill. The tiff began with Cartmill’s paper “ Primate origins, human origins, and the end of higher taxa, ” continued with Tattersall’s “ Higher taxa: An alternate perspective ,” continued again with Cartmill’s “ The end of higher taxa: a reply to Tattersall, ” before Tattersall finally declared “ Enough already. “

Cartmill and Tattersall’s recent exchange was the latest in a series of erudite bickering that’s been ongoing since the 1980s. Though good friends, the two share manifold disagreements on Systematics — the study of the diversification of living forms — and how it should be used. By examining the relationships between species, we can track how life gradually  transformed over billions of years  from single-celled organisms to become whales, spiders, and even humans. In essence, Cartmill questions why often tiny differences separate certain animals into different species and families while others do not. Tattersall views this stance as an attack on Systematics itself, avowing that it’s vital to document every tiny change and classify species accordingly.

Shortest Abstract:

In 2011 , particle physicists were flabbergasted when they discovered that neutrinos could apparently travel faster than light, breaking the universal speed limit proposed by Einstein. Their result was later proven to be in error.

But before the mistake was revealed, physicists scrambled to account for the mind-boggling result. A group from the H.W. Wills Physics Laboratory  in Bristol and the Indian Institute of Technology wondered , “”Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?” Their abstract succinctly and bluntly answered that question: “Probably not.”

Shortest Paper:

In 1974, clinical psychologist Dennis Upper found himself stricken with writer’s block. Though pen was to paper, no words would flow. He decided to solve his problem with a scientific experiment. Yet, as is frequently the case in science, his experiment didn’t work as intended, and that’s putting it euphemistically. Despite the failure, his work, “ The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block ,” was published in the prestigious Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis. It is reproduced in its entirety below:

Despite the paper’s glaring brevity, Upper’s reviewer hailed its brilliance:

“I have studied this manuscript very carefully with lemon juice and X-rays and have not detected a single flaw in either design or writing style. I suggest it be published without revision. Clearly it is the most concise manuscript I have ever seen-yet it contains sufficient detail to allow other investigators to replicate Dr. Upper’s failure. In comparison with the other manuscripts I get from you containing all that complicated detail, this one was a pleasure to examine. Surely we can find a place for this paper in the Journal-perhaps on the edge of a blank page.”

(Images:  Shutterstock ,  io9 ,  io9 )

Home > Sciences and Arts > Dept. of Physics > Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Dept. of Physics Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Explore our collection of dissertations, master's theses and master's reports from the Department of Physics below.

Theses/Dissertations/Reports from 2024 2024

APPLICATIONS OF INDEPENDENT AND IDENTICALLY DISTRIBUTED (IID) RANDOM PROCESSES IN POLARIMETRY AND CLIMATOLOGY , Dan Kestner

DEPENDENCE OF ENERGY TRANSFER ON CURVATURE SIMILARITY IN COLLISIONS INVOLVING CURVED SHOCK FRONTS , Justin Cassell

HALIDE-ASSISTED GROWTH OF TRANSITION METAL DICHALCOGENIDES , Vinaayak Sivam Balasubramaniam

Study of Particle Accelerators in the Universe with the HAWC Observatory , Rishi Babu

Theses/Dissertations/Reports from 2023 2023

An exploration of cloud droplet growth by condensation and collision-coalescence in a convection-cloud chamber , Jacob T. Kuntzleman

A Search for Compact Object Dark Matter in the Universe Utilizing Gravitational Millilensing of Gamma-ray Bursts , Oindabi Mukherjee

Fabrication and Optical Properties of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides , Manpreet Boora

Large cloud droplets and the initiation of ice by pressure fluctuations: Molecular simulations and airborne in-situ observations , Elise Rosky

On Examining Solvation and Dielectric Constants of Polar and Ionic Liquids using the Stockmayer Fluid Model , Cameron J. Shock

PHYSICAL, OPTICAL, AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF LIGHT ABSORBING AEROSOLS AND THEIR CLIMATIC IMPACTS , Susan Mathai

STUDY OF ELECTRONIC AND MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF BILAYER GRAPHENE NANOFLAKES AND BIMETALLIC CHALCOGENIDES USING FIRST-PRINCIPLES DENSITY FUNCTIONAL THEORY AND MACHINE LEARNING , Dharmendra Pant

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Control of spontaneous emission dynamics in microcavities with chiral exceptional surfaces , Amin Hashemi

Investigating ice nucleation at negative pressures using molecular dynamics: A first order approximation of the dependence of ice nucleation rate on pressure , Elise Rosky

Modeling and Numerical Simulations Of The Michigan Tech Convection Cloud Chamber , Subin Thomas

PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS AND THEIR EFFECT ON ICE CLOUD FORMATION , Nurun Nahar Lata

RADIAL BASIS FUNCTION METHOD FOR COMPUTATIONAL PHOTONICS , Seyed Mostafa Rezaei

UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF WATER VAPOR AND TEMPERATURE ON AEROSOL USING NOVEL MEASUREMENT METHODS , Tyler Jacob Capek

Van der Waals Quantum Dots: Synthesis, Characterization, and Applications , Amit Acharya

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Cosmic-Ray Acceleration in the Cygnus OB2 Stellar Association , Binita Hona

OPTICAL DISPERSION RELATIONS FROM THREE-DIMENSIONAL CHIRAL GOLD NANOCUBES IN PERIODIC ARRAYS , Manpreet Boora

Phase Resolved Analysis of Pulsar PSR J2032.2+4126 , Aishwarya Satyawan Dahiwale

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Aerosol-Cloud Interactions in Turbulent Clouds: A Combined Cloud Chamber and Theoretical Study , Kamal Kant Chandrakar

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The Solvation Energy of Ions in a Stockmayer Fluid , Cameron John Shock

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ANGLE-RESOLVED OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPY OF PLASMONIC RESONANCES , Aeshah Khudaysh M Muqri

Effects of Ionic Liquid on Lithium Dendrite Growth , Ziwei Qian

EFFECTS OF MASS AND DISTANCE UNCERTAINTIES ON CALCULATIONS OF FLUX FROM GIANT MOLECULAR CLOUDS , Matt Coel

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Current Atmospheric Refraction Models in Predicting Sunrise and Sunset Times , Teresa Wilson

FIRST-PRINCIPLES INVESTIGATION OF THE INTERFACIAL PROPERTIES OF BORON NITRIDE , Kevin Waters

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Novel Faraday Rotation Effects Observed In Ultra-Thin Iron Garnet Films , Brandon Blasiola

PROBING QUANTUM TRANSPORT IN THREE-TERMINAL NANOJUNCTIONS , Meghnath Jaishi

STUDY OF THE CYGNUS REGION WITH FERMI AND HAWC , Andrew Robare

Synthesis and Applications of One and Two-Dimensional Boron Nitride Based Nanomaterials , Shiva Bhandari

SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION, AND APPLICATION OF 2D TRANSITION METAL DICHALCOGENIDES , Mingxiao Ye

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CVD SYNTHESIS, PROCESSING, QUANTIFICATION, AND APPLICATIONS OF BORON NITRIDE NANOTUBES , Bishnu Tiwari

Gamma/Hadron Separation for the HAWC Observatory , Michael J. Gerhardt

LABORATORY, COMPUTATIONAL AND THEORETICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF ICE NUCLEATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR MIXED PHASE CLOUDS , Fan Yang

LABORATORY STUDIES OF THE INTERSTITIAL AEROSOL REMOVAL MECHANISMS IN A CLOUD CHAMBER , Sarita Karki

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Studies of invisibility cloak based on structured dielectric artificial materials , Ran Duan

Testing Lidar-Radar Derived Drop Sizes Against In Situ Measurements , Mary Amanda Shaw

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BARIUM CONCENTRATIONS IN ROCK SALT BY LASER INDUCED BREAKDOWN SPECTROSCOPY , Kiley J. Spirito

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STOCHASTIC CHARGE TRANSPORT IN MULTI-ISLAND SINGLE-ELECTRON TUNNELING DEVICES , Madhusudan A. Savaikar

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Calibration of the HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory , Nathan C. Kelley-Hoskins

Charge and spin transport in nanoscale junction from first principles , Subhasish Mandal

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What is the shortest Ph.D. thesis? [closed]

The question is self-explanatory, but I want to make some remarks in order to prevent the responses from going off into undesirable directions.

It seems that every few years I hear someone ask this question; it seems to hold a perennial fascination for research mathematicians, just as quests for short proofs do. The trouble is that it has strong urban-legend tendencies: someone will say, "So-and-so's thesis was only $\epsilon$ pages long!" where $\epsilon \ll 1$ . It will often be very difficult to confirm or disconfirm such claims, since Ph.D. theses are often not even published, let alone readily available online. If you Google around for a while, as I did, you will find many dubious leads and can easily waste a lot of time on wild goose chases. Frankly, I'm a bit fed up with this state of affairs. I am therefore asking this question on MO in the hope that doing so will put this old question to rest, or at least establish provable upper bounds.

I would therefore request that you set yourself a high standard before replying. Don't post a candidate unless you're sure your facts are correct, and please give some indication why you're so sure. Read the meta discussion before posting. (Note that the meta discussion illustrates that even a MathSciNet citation isn't always totally definitive.) Include information about the content and circumstances of the thesis if you know it, but resist the temptation to gossip or speculate.

I'm not making this question community wiki or big-list because it should ideally have a definite answer, though I grant that it's possible that there are some borderline cases out there (perhaps there are theses that were not written in scholarly good faith, or documents that some people would regard as equivalent to a Ph.D. thesis but that others would not, or theses in subjects that are strictly speaking distinct from mathematics but that are arguably indistinguishable from mathematics dissertations).

Finally, to anticipate a possible follow-up question, there is a list of short published papers here (search for "Nelson"). Note that the question of the shortest published paper is not as urban-legendy because the facts are easier to verify. I looked up the short papers listed there myself and found them to be quite interesting. So in addition to trying to settle an urban legend, I am hoping that this question will bring to light some interesting and lesser known mathematics.

• ho.history-overview
• 9 $\begingroup$ I think it really should be CW. It makes no sense to me that the shorter the proposed candidate, the more reputation the proposer will get. It will also lower the temptation for people to post gossipy stuff. $\endgroup$ –  Alex B. Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 15:31
• 3 $\begingroup$ The only reasonable interpretation of the question is extremely short theses in general, because there is more than one measure of the length of a thesis. Moreover in some cases it's debatable whether a particular document really is a thesis or the full thesis. It realy should be CW. $\endgroup$ –  Greg Kuperberg Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 15:40
• 3 $\begingroup$ How would you like to count? Do all the cover pages, table of contents, abstract, etc. count? How about references? Or do you begin with the introduction and only include the content? $\endgroup$ –  Noah Stein Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:33
• 5 $\begingroup$ -1. This question is terrible. I'm sure I could reformat my thesis in a silly font size to make it have a ludicrously small number of pages. $\endgroup$ –  Peter McNamara Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 19:50
• 8 $\begingroup$ @Peter McNamara: you probably could, but I'm pretty certain that this is not the issue being discussed here. Anyway, most universities have specific formatting standards and would not let you submit it in this form. $\endgroup$ –  Thierry Zell Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 20:05

9 Answers 9

David Rector's thesis ("An Unstable Adams Spectral Sequence", MIT 1966) is 9 pages, according to the record at the MIT library . I haven't seen the actual thesis for many years, but I'm pretty the actual mathematical content takes about 3 pages total, and is largely identical to the published version in Topology (1966, same title, doi link: https://doi.org/10.1016/0040-9383(66)90025-5 ), which is 3 pages plus bibliography. (Dan Kan, his advisor, likes short papers.)

• 2 $\begingroup$ Probably not a coincidence. $\endgroup$ –  Tyler Lawson Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 20:25
• 3 $\begingroup$ Accepted provisionally. Enough people seem instinctively annoyed at this question that it seems likely to be closed soon (despite the fact that I'm asking it on MO in order to prevent its proliferation elsewhere). It doesn't seem likely that a stronger candidate will emerge before then. Ideally I'd like to examine the thesis myself before accepting the answer but I don't feel like purchasing it and it may be a while before my next trip to Boston. $\endgroup$ –  Timothy Chow Commented Feb 9, 2011 at 15:56
• 4 $\begingroup$ Aside from the library copy, there should be a slightly more accessible copy in the MIT Math reading room. (They used to keep copies of theses there, and I assume they still do.) Maybe somebody reading this could wander down the hall and take a look. :) $\endgroup$ –  Charles Rezk Commented Feb 9, 2011 at 18:55
• 31 $\begingroup$ I'm in the reading room now. Rector's thesis comprises a title page, an abstract page, a table of contents page, 7 pages of math, a bibliography page (8 refs.), and a biographical note page. The MIT library record's "9 leaves" exclude the title/abstract/contents, which are not numbered. Except for some trivial changes in wording in the intro, the mathematical part is indeed identical to the 4-page Topology paper, vol. 5 (1966), 343-346. The thesis occupies more space since it's manually typed; not including section titles, the 4 sections are respectively 18, 23, 42, and 36 typewritten lines. $\endgroup$ –  Timothy Chow Commented Aug 19, 2011 at 18:44
• $\begingroup$ 119 typewritten lines! $\endgroup$ –  David Roberts ♦ Commented Oct 14, 2022 at 10:53

John Nash's thesis was 26 pages, and had two references in the bibliography.

Edmund Landau's thesis was 13 pages long.

• $\begingroup$ There is an English translation here: arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0803/0803.3787v2.pdf That document is 17 pages (including title page, etc.). $\endgroup$ –  Zach N Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 18:06
• 2 $\begingroup$ For a link to a scanned version of Landau's thesis see here gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PPN=PPN317979566 The document has 18 pages, of which 2 are completely empty, indeed the catalogue of the libraries of Berlin gives 16 pages as lengths. (the French national library catalogue gives 18). Moreover, one page is a title page, one is a dedication, and one is a vita. So, depending on what one actually counts, 18, 16, or 13. According to library catalogues 16 or 18. $\endgroup$ –  user9072 Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 18:15

I believe the shortest PhD thesis is of Burt Totaro "Milnor K-theory is the simplest part of algebraic K-theory", 12 pages.

Milnor K-theory is the simplest part of algebraic K-theory, Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1989; published as: K-Theory 6 (1992), 177-189 ( Portico archived version ).

Burt Totaro's webpage at Cambridge , including a pdf of the published version .

• 1 $\begingroup$ its complete thesis. I gave two references here, Milnor K-theory is the simplest part of algebraic K-theory, Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1989 and K-Theory 6 (1992), 177-189 $\endgroup$ –  J Verma Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:43
• 2 $\begingroup$ I noticed, but the reference to the actual thesis does not have a page numbers (and it is somewhat surprising that the number of pages did not change from the thesis to K-theory's format) :) $\endgroup$ –  Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:45
• 16 $\begingroup$ Totaro's 1989 thesis is titled "K-theory and algebraic cycles" and, according to ProQuest, is 20 pages. If your university library subscribes to ProQuest, you can see a PDF preview of the thesis by searching for "Totaro, Burt" in the Dissertations and Theses database. $\endgroup$ –  Zach N Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 18:02
• 4 $\begingroup$ You can download it on mathscinet. It has 16 numbered pages, incl. 1 page of bibliography. Definitions start on page 1 though, not much of an introduction. $\endgroup$ –  fherzig Commented Feb 9, 2011 at 2:58
• 1 $\begingroup$ I downloaded the thesis from ProQuest. It comprises a signature page, a title page, an abstract page, an epigram page, 15 pages of (TeXed) math, and a bibliography page. Short, but not as short as David Rector's thesis. $\endgroup$ –  Timothy Chow Commented Aug 19, 2011 at 19:00

This is not really an answer because these PhD's were never actually written, but anyway: in his book A mathematicians miscellany (in the chapter on math with minimum raw material) Littlewood gave 2 examples that could have been 2-line PhDs:

(1) Cayley's projective definition of length

(2)Theorem: An integral function never 0 or 1 is a constant. Proof: $\exp(i\Omega(f(z)))$ is a bounded integral function. ($\Omega$ is inverse to the elliptic modular function.)

• 3 $\begingroup$ Richard, perhaps you overlooked that Gerry Myerson already gave this example on the meta discussion? $\endgroup$ –  Timothy Chow Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 15:53
• 19 $\begingroup$ I don't think it is reasonable to expect people to have read all the meta discussion before posting on a regular thread. This is a sort of fluff question, so it doesn't matter much, but in general I think it should be fine to repost answers from meta, so that the main thread has the most complete record of answers to the question. $\endgroup$ –  David E Speyer Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:52
• 7 $\begingroup$ While I agree with David Speyer in general, I also do not think this should have been posted as an answer to this particular question, given the questioner's emphasis on restricting the scope of the question. $\endgroup$ –  Charles Staats Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:27
• 6 $\begingroup$ @David: I too would agree that in general it’s not reasonable to expect people to read meta discussions on questions before answering them. But this question specifically asks us to, and gives good reasons for it. $\endgroup$ –  Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 20:18
• $\begingroup$ (2) is a trivial corollary of Picard's little theorem. $\endgroup$ –  tst Commented Jun 13, 2017 at 3:06

I already posted this on meta where there was some discussion of whether the page count was correct. My guess is that it is, so I will post it here too:

MR2615548 Martens, Henrik Herman Buvik A NEW PROOF OF TORELLI'S THEOREM. Thesis (Ph.D.)–New York University. 1962. 12 pp.

• 8 $\begingroup$ Compared to that, the thesis of his student Kristian Seip was a massive tome, weighing in at 30 pages. $\endgroup$ –  Harald Hanche-Olsen Commented Feb 9, 2011 at 7:56

Kurt Gödel seems to be a good candidate for this "prize".

Let me quote from this review (see Page 74) of Kurt Gödel Collected Works.

The first three works of Godel in this volume are his dissertation of 1929 ( twenty-one pages in English ), a revised and substantially abbreviated version (eleven pages in English) published in 1930, and a brief abstract based on a presentation of Godel's results in Konigsberg on 6 September 1930. Of all of Godel's longer, published writings, his dissertation has been, until now, the most difficult to obtain, and is here translated for the first time into English, by Stefan Bauer-Mengelberg and van Heijenoort.

• 3 $\begingroup$ The original version of his thesis seems to have 33 pages; see permalink.obvsg.at/AC05181322 (the number next to "Umfangsangabe") $\endgroup$ –  user9072 Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:59
• 2 $\begingroup$ I cannot say anything about the original version (my German skills are null, not almost null). But I have just checked my copy of the Collected Works (unfortunately I have not found any online library to link), and in pages 60-101 we can find Godel's dissertation (even pages match German, while odd ones match English). Thus, the description "21 pages in English" is accurate. $\endgroup$ –  boumol Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:14
• 1 $\begingroup$ I did not want to imply your claim was not accurate. Only, as I understand the question, it is about the actual document the person submitted as a thesis. Thus, I supplemented this information, documenting it by the link to the entry of Goedels thesis in the joint library catalogue of Austrian (academic) libraries. It specifies title, author, year, lengths (that's the Umfangsangabe, S. abbreviates 'Seiten' i.e. pages), the type of document (thesis of University of Vienna (Wien)), and finally the specific libraries where it can be found. $\endgroup$ –  user9072 Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 17:48

According to mathscinet, Eva Kallin's thesis was 14 pages.

• 3 $\begingroup$ This is promising, but as the question mentions and the meta thread shows, MathSciNet alone is not an authoritative reference. More documentation? $\endgroup$ –  Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 20:12

Barry Mazur's thesis on the proof of the Schoenflies conjecture (and introducing the method of infinite repetition in topology) is 5 pages long.

• 4 $\begingroup$ According to "Mathematical apocrypha redux" by Krantz, Mazur's thesis was 26 pages long. $\endgroup$ –  Michael Greinecker Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:22
• 2 $\begingroup$ Mathscinet says his thesis is 30 pages. $\endgroup$ –  Jaikrishnan Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:26
• 70 $\begingroup$ Well, it may not be the shortest but it surelyt appears to have the most variable number of pages! $\endgroup$ –  Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:42
• 17 $\begingroup$ Let's please heed Timothy's call to do one's homework carefully. "Don't post a candidate unless you're sure your facts are correct, and please give some indication why you're so sure. Read the meta discussion before posting." $\endgroup$ –  Todd Trimble Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:47
• $\begingroup$ Yikes. I had never looked at the thesis, but just the published version in the Bulletin of the AMS which is 5 pages long. $\endgroup$ –  Victor Miller Commented Feb 23, 2011 at 22:12

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Does the length of a PhD thesis matter?

I am writing a PhD thesis in literature. I have covered all areas in about 120 pages. Does the length of a PhD thesis matter even if it has covered all the areas mentioned in the synopsis?

• research-process

• 4 Quality counts independant of length. –  Solar Mike Commented Jun 28, 2020 at 12:31
• 4 Ask your PhD advisor; your question is country and university specific –  Basile Starynkevitch Commented Jun 28, 2020 at 12:32
• 3 In some fields, it seems to do. Asking your PhD advisor is indeed your best bet. –  lighthouse keeper Commented Jun 28, 2020 at 12:33
• Actually, if you want a weighty PhD thesis, then the grammage (thickness) of the paper that you print it on is just as important as the number of pages. If you printed those 120 pages on card-stock paper, it would be solid enough to knock the socks off any thesis supervisor. –  Tripartio Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 19:33

5 Answers 5

John Nash's thesis was 26 pages long with only two references and he later won a Nobel prize. What matters is scientific quality not quantity, if your ideas are superior nobody will object the length (mine was less than 100 pages).

• 9 Math is really special in this respect. You won't find a PhD thesis in literature of that length. –  lighthouse keeper Commented Jun 28, 2020 at 14:50
• 2 @lighthousekeeper But even that isn't because in literature theses are somehow evaluated by their length but only due to the fact that in literature its much harder to be concise when properly explaining a certain point. –  mlk Commented Jun 29, 2020 at 11:28
• 1 @mlk That's a friendly, admissible interpretation of the situation. I'll leave it at that. –  lighthouse keeper Commented Jun 29, 2020 at 11:50
• @lighthousekeeper true. You also won’t find someone who won the Nobel prize in literature for their PhD thesis, regardless of its length. –  Dan Romik Commented Jun 29, 2020 at 19:50

The advice you have so far is pretty US specific - in a system without a committee system, where you will be judged by your examiners in a one off thing, you may want to be more careful.

Of course, the person who should really know the answer to this is your supervisor/advisor, but should also be able to look up what the criteria are for your university. I would generally ask around your field. In my field in my country, a thesis is expected to contain at least three more or less complete "stories" that add up to a advance in the field. In biomolecular sciences, 120 pages would be very much on the short side for that, but not completely out of the question - a 40 page literature review and 20 pages of Methods, 5 pages of general discussion/conclusion would leave you with only 55 pages of results - doable if you are terse and everything worked first time.

But these expectations are going to differ from system to system and subject to subject. Speak to people in the know.

If it satisfies your advisor and the committee it is fine. A 1 page dissertation in poetry is within the realm of possibility, however unlikely.

It is a mistake to pad things, I think.

Some places (and some advisors) might have minimal length requirements, though I would question them. But if that is the issue here you need to think a bit more about the overall structure, not just the page count.

• Could you perhaps expand on what you mean by “pad things” in your answer? The additional clarity I think could add value to the response. –  GrayLiterature Commented Jun 28, 2020 at 15:48
• 1 @GrayLiterature, "padding" is a common idiom for adding less relevant things (or irrelevant) to make something bigger or longer. Think about a very thin person playing the typical Santa Claus role in a department store. (Or watch the NSFW movie "Bad Santa".) –  Buffy Commented Jun 28, 2020 at 15:52

I did one in the low hundred plus. As long as it passes your committee that is all that matters. But a brave face on, submit it and see the reaction.

Don't even ask if it is suitable. Just submit it to your advisor as your intended work product. After all your independent view is that it is good enough. Let him volunteer a criticism if he chooses. But don't suggest it.

• 2 This only works in a system where you get the chance to try again if the committee doesn't like it. Not all systems are like that. –  Ian Sudbery Commented Jun 29, 2020 at 10:02

PhD theses are judged on the quality of their content. Length is only relevant to the extent that it makes that content understandable (not too short) and findable (not too long).

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Doctoral Dissertations in Chemistry and Physics: A Longitudinal Study

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• https://doi.org/10.1080/0194262X.2023.2208627

Introduction

Literature review, methodology, journal article references, monograph references, dissertations and theses references, conference papers or proceedings references, technical reports references, “other” category references, reference age, conclusions and future study.

• Acknowledgements

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A bibliometric analysis was conducted over the bibliographies of chemistry and physics doctoral dissertations between 1970 and 2020 to ascertain what types of documents are cited, average ages of cited references and overall changes of dissertation references that have occurred with the advent of electronic resources. The study reviewed 50 dissertations for each discipline with 10 dissertations from each decade ( n  = 100). Results measured 12,065 total references and found that the median age of journals increased in both chemistry and physics, doubling from 2010 to 2020. Only a few dissertation studies have been done on a longitudinal base to evaluate changes in publication trends. Similarities between the two disciplines with increases in the percentages of journal articles and declines in the number of books, other dissertations, and material types are calculated.

• dissertations
• citation analysis
• bibliometrics

Line and Sandison ( Citation 1974 ) distinguished synchronous studies that analyze the reference ages from source literature and diachronous studies that analyze citing literature. Median is often used to measure age in synchronous studies such as in this review (Line and Sandison Citation 1974 ; Ortega Citation 2008 ). Bibliometric techniques often use citation analysis, which involves reviewing the type of cited material, age, and calculated “obsolesce” of citations. Quantitative metrics such as number of ties to special journals, publishers, number of authors, countries, or other affiliations can also be measured.

Smith ( Citation 1981 ) made distinctions between the terms “references” and “citations” for the purposes of citation analysis as “a reference is the acknowledgment that one document gives to another; a citation is the acknowledgment that one document receives from another.” By this definition, this study reviewed references and that terminology is used to refer to the data used, and citation analysis is used to describe the analysis process (Ortega Citation 2008 ; Smith Citation 1981 ).

Historically one of the first citation analyses was conducted by Gross and Gross ( Citation 1927 ) when they examined the references in articles published in the 1927 Journal of the American Chemical Society in order to determine prominent science journals to determine best practices in core science library collections.

One of the first dissertation citation analysis was done in 1981, when McCain and Bobick first reviewed doctoral dissertations and preliminary dissertations to assess 1975–1977 biology library journal usage for library collection and assessment purposes. Doctoral dissertations are single-authored monographs generally held to be a significant penultimate document of a Ph.D. program. Most are written over a 3-to-4-year period. Often chapters or parts of a dissertation become a part of a peer reviewed journal article and, ironically, the articles may be published with coauthors including the faculty advisor and/or others working in a research group (Evans et al. Citation 2018 ).

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is a Carnegie R1 university with over 34,000 undergraduates, over 17,000 graduate students, and 1,900 tenure-system faculty, offering degrees in over 150 programs. In 2019, UIUC awarded almost 14,000 degrees, including 874 PhDs. The UIUC Library supports this wide variety of instructional and research programs with comprehensive journal subscriptions from all major commercial and professional society publishers. The department of Physics is one of the top ranked physics programs in the United States with leading programs in Condensed Matter Physics and High Energy Physics (HEP). Physics 55 faculties; 33 post docs; 120 graduate students (teaching and research assistants) each year; chemistry 30 tenure track faculty; 28 post docs and around 50 research and graduate assistants each year. Chemistry has adjunct faculty and lecturers teaching lower-level undergraduate courses, whereas physics often has teaching assistants for courses.

Likewise, the School of Chemical Sciences at UIUC is in the top 10 chemistry programs in the United States, according to the US News and World Reports Ranking ( https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/chemistry-rankings?_sort=rank-asc ).

What types of resources are being used in addition to journals and books?

What are the ages of materials being cited and if there are different ages for various document types?

Is the age of references increasing or decreasing particularly with more and older online content being made available?

Determining how online references can be better identified as library usage.

Many analyses on theses and dissertation bibliographies have been performed, primarily as a collection development tool in academic libraries. The ideology is that what graduate students are referencing in theses and dissertations is a good indicator of the current research areas at academic institutions and that it is useful to determine whether libraries are purchasing the books, journals, and other materials that support those dissertation areas. Some studies focus on particular material types such as books (Flaxbart Citation 2018 ; Franks and Dotson Citation 2017 ; Phillips Citation 2018 ), government documents (Barnes Citation 2006 ), and open access journals (Wani and Wani Citation 2019 ). Many focus on specific disciplines within certain time periods (Flynn Citation 2020 ; Kaczor Citation 2014 ; Rose-Wiles Citation 2022 ; Vallmitjana and Sabaté Citation 2008 ; Zhang Citation 2013 ). Many of them look across disciplines or areas of study (Kayongo and Helm Citation 2012 ; Kushkowski et al. Citation 2003 ; Zipp Citation 1996 ).

Barnes ( Citation 2006 ) examined doctoral dissertations at Mississippi State University for references to federal government publications ( n  = 707) between 2000 and 2004. Their College of Arts and Sciences had the highest number of references (3.3%) and how the transition from print documents to online formats increased in use but indicated a decline of references to government documents. Barnes suggested that some students may have reviewed government technical reports but did not cite them.

Sinn ( Citation 2005 ) reviewed 67 math and statistics dissertations between 1980 and 2002 with 2145 references. Journals resulted in 65.9% of the total references with 27% book references. The average ages for the document types were journals at 16.6 years and books at 14.5 years. Technical reports were referenced 57 times and preprints had 55 references, measuring just over 2% each.

A later study at the University of Albany examined a math and statistics dissertation citation analysis from 2009 to 2019 in order to find resource types that graduate students are using, variation of journal titles as compared with other STEM disciplines, references to advisors’ publications, age of references, and publishers with highest reference counts. This article found similar metrics to previous analysis and revealed the importance that the arXiv preprint server has had for mathematics, physics, and other topics covered (Flynn Citation 2020 ).

Zhang compared chemistry and chemical engineering dissertations between 2002 and 2011 at Mississippi State and found 87.1% journal article references and 7.1 books from 3,886 chemistry references. Chemical engineering was a bit surprising at 71.4% articles and 13.2% book from a total 2768 references.

Zipp ( Citation 1996 ) conducted an early study that looked at some previous citation analysis in biology at Temple University (McCain and Bobick Citation 1981 ) and geology at both UCLA and Stanford (Noga et al. Citation 1994 ). Both studies also reviewed journal and book references in faculty publications in order to compare to dissertations references to identify highly cited library materials. Zipp utilized the Kendal τ test as opposed to Pearson r -index due to sample size greater than 30 and since the Pearson value can fall farther from zero. Zipp found that the top 40 journal titles cited by graduate students in their dissertations predicted the same top 40 titles cited by faculty publications.

Cole et al. ( Citation 2018 ) looked at dissertations written in 2016 from nine engineering disciplines, using ProQuest Dissertation and Theses Abstract and Index (PDTAI) dissertations that had bibliographies that could be downloaded separately from the main text and using R they extracted 20 references from each decade from 1950 to 2017. They then searched 1260 references to determine how discoverable each resource was in Google Scholar, Scopus, and Compendex indexing services. References were categorized as findable in full record with abstract, reference only, or not easily discovered. All subject areas had a high number of journal articles, followed by books ranked second until 1980, when conference proceedings began to outnumber books. This was consistent with this study.

Flaxbart’ s ( Citation 2018 ) analysis of books cited in chemistry dissertations found that references to books had decreased over his study between 1988 and 2015. He found that the earlier 1988 dissertations had the highest references (10.4%) to books. Overall, 5.4% of the book references with a median age of 11 years. The cumulative percentage of the UT-Austin books referenced by age resulted in a Pareto distribution of 21 years or less.

Eckel ( Citation 2009 ) compared engineering master’s theses and doctoral dissertation references, and found greater exhaustiveness in the number of references, chronological age, and document type of references in dissertations. His study cited fewer scholarly resources such as academic journals than other dissertation studies of 44.3%. Eckel found that the references in engineering master’s theses tended to be more focused on web resources, gray literature, trade journals, and other resources easily retrieved through search engines. Masters’ students did cite monographs marginally more than doctoral references and were attributed to a need for more foundational understanding.

Becker and Chiware also found the same results as Eckel in that more engineering master’s theses were citing books than journals when compared to doctoral dissertations. Their study was over 100 dissertations published between 2005 and 2014 with a total of 7947 references (Becker and Chiware Citation 2015 ).

Atmospheric science dissertations published between 2000 and 2010 were reviewed by Kaczor in 2014. Her results were in line with many other physical science areas of 85.1% of journal articles and 7.6% books from a total of 3298 references.

Dotson and Franks ( Citation 2015 ) looked at research references in civil engineering, computer science, math, and physics dissertations over a 15-year period (1998–2012). For the 133 physics dissertations, articles were ranked top at 75.3%. Interestingly, technical reports and books fluctuated in second place over the course of their study. Overall, books were 7.8% and technical reports at 4.4% of the evaluated references. Surprisingly, preprints (such as arXiv) were ranked eighth during most years of their study (Dotson and Franks Citation 2015 ).

Franks and Dotson ( Citation 2017 ) followed up their 2015 citation analysis to specifically evaluate book references and the type of publishers (commercial, academic, society, government, etc.) Dotson and Franks Citation 2017 examined books cited in 2003 to 2012 dissertations at Ohio State University and resulted in 73% of books cited were from the major scientific publishers, irrespective of format or age. Commercial publishers ranked at the top 73.17% with various commercial publishers ranked at the top by the four disciplines (civil engineering, computer science, math, and physics). The study did not account for age or format of the books. At the time of their article, they noted that e-book packages were mainly older content, which many libraries would already own books in print format. Theirconclusion that 50% or more dissertation book references were from seven main publishers: Wiley, Elsevier, Springer, Cambridge University Press, Taylor & Francis, AMS, and Pearson, and many libraries could assert that these e-book platforms would be sufficient for their respective user groups.

The Kushkowski et al.’s ( Citation 2003 ) study had a longitudinal period to evaluate changes in publications and also analyzed both Master’s and Doctoral theses written between 1973 and 1992 at Iowa State over many disciplines in order to compare references between the graduate-level work and determine whether or not the library owned the cited resources. A total of 629 theses were selected from the print collection and every fifth reference from the respective bibliography with a total of 9102 references. The subject areas included Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and the Physical Sciences.

Kushkowski ( Citation 2005 ) followed with a second study of web references in 2005 specifically looking at print and electronic dissertations in economics and whether there were differences in references to web content in the two formats. Utilizing a traditional print collection at Iowa State and the early established electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) collection at Virginia Technology University, he was able to ascertain that web references were low in both groups and that the increased use and accessibility of electronic dissertations had not increased their usage, and consequently, referencing in other dissertations.

Gooden’s ( Citation 2001 ) analysis of 30 chemistry dissertations between 1996 and 2000 also indicated the highest usage of journals (85.5%) to monographs (8.4%). Her analysis uncovered that only 12 journal titles could cover 50% of journal references.

Anaehobi and Ofoedu ( Citation 2021 ) carried out a chemistry dissertation analysis on 85 documents published between 2010 and 2019 with a total of 4730 references. Their findings revealed 2001 journal references resulting in 42.3% and 1365 book references at 28.86% of the total.

Rose-Wiles ( Citation 2022 ) reviewed 34 chemistry dissertation references over a 10-year period (2008–2018) to compare to an earlier study of faculty references in American Chemical Society journals. Statistics on the average number of references cited, source types, and various age metrics including median years and percentages for references ≤5 years, ≤10 years, between 10 and 19 years and over 20 years were included. She found the median age of references have increased slightly from 11.9 years in 2008 to 13.4 years in 2018. A comparison to library holdings and Interlibrary loan (ILL) requests were also measured.

Appendix 1 provides a comparative table of dissertation studies in chemistry and/or physics with number of documents studied, citation totals, percentages of articles and books, and median or average ages.

ProQuest Dissertation and Theses Abstracts and Index (PDTAI) was searched using the exact school’s name and department name and limited by each decade (e.g. 1970–1979, 1980–1989, etc.). For example, the search string was “sch.Exact(‘UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN’) AND dep(PHYSICS) AND pd(20100101–20201231)” where publication date (pd) is edited for each decade and dep is edited for department. Results were saved to the MyResearch option in ProQuest in separate discipline folders.

A random number generator was used to select 10 dissertations from each discipline for each decade (i.e., 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, etc.). The bibliographies were printed from the full-text format. In some cases, references were listed at the end of a chapter but in most cases, there was a complete bibliography at the end of the dissertation. Earlier dissertations from the 1970s often used the Chicago Manual of Style with multiple resources listed in a single numbered reference. All individual references were counted, deduped, and adjustments were made in the total reference count when Chicago style was used. Starting around 2008, many ProQuest dissertations offered separate Reference files, which enabled the references to be extracted into Excel or other software. Other bibliographic studies have extracted these files into Excel or other software for their citation analysis (Flynn Citation 2020 ; Rose-Wiles Citation 2022 ). For consistency with the review of earlier dissertation bibliographies, the option to download reference lists was not used. Bibliographies continued to be reviewed in their original format.

A Microsoft Excel worksheet was designed with author name, year of dissertation, total number of pages, and total number of references. Library staff reviewed each bibliography and counted each reference by year of publication of the journal articles, books, conference paper or proceeding, technical report, or “other” category. “Other” was counted for personal communications, catalogs, preprints, or software, and a brief note was made about which type. A “web resource” was added for dissertations for the decades beginning with the 1990–1999 decade. Notes on the organization affiliated with technical reports were made such as the federal agency: (Department of Energy, National Science Foundation), corporation, or academic institution. Some foreign agencies were sometimes cited, such as CERN for High Energy Physics reports.

An aggregate Excel worksheet to compile each decade of 10 dissertations by discipline was created to summarize counts and ages for journal articles, books, dissertations or theses, and conference documents (proceedings or papers). “Other” type references and technical reports were also compiled with short identifying notes. The oldest reference and material type were also indicated. Statistics on the total number, ages, average, median year, top 25% and 80% were generated for each worksheet.

Table 1. Chemistry and physics dissertation reference totals by material type.

Percentages of journal articles, books, dissertations, and conference proceedings fluctuated over time. For example, chemistry journal percentages were at or above 90% during the 1970, 2000, and 2010-decade analysis. The lower 86% (1980) and 89% (1990) percentages lowered the overall chemistry journal percentage to 89%.

Similarly, physics has the lowest percentage, 75%, of journal references during the 1970 decade, but it steadily increased over time to over 91% during the 2010-decade to the overall 80% average.

Table 2. Chemistry reference and pages by decade.

Table 3. physics references and pages by decade..

There is a slight increase in the average number of references per dissertation, despite a near consistent number of references during the 1980s and 1990s. However, the number of references nearly doubled from the 2000-decade dissertations to the 2010 dissertations in physics. Since the dissertations were randomly selected, it may be happenstance that those selected had more references. The overall standard deviation for physics average references was 34.18.

While many longer dissertations had a correspondingly high number of references, this was not always the case. Surprisingly, there were a few dissertations that had very few article references, and a majority were to monographs or monographic series.

Figure 1. Chemistry reference percentages for articles, books, and dissertations.

Figure 2. Physics reference percentages for articles, books, and dissertations.

Figure 2 is a similar graph of the same 3-tiered reference percentages, with journal articles steadily increasing from 75% to 91%; whereas book references have steadily decreased over time from 19% to 8% over the five-decade period. Other dissertations referenced have also declined over time from .06 to .01.

As in all the other dissertation reference analyses reviewed, journal references are most numerous. The percentages of journal articles from various chemistry dissertation studies are between 79% and 95% (see Appendix 1 ). There are fewer physics studies indicating between 74% and 80% journal references, overall.

The Kushkowski et al. ( Citation 2003 ) study of Physical Science dissertations indicated journal usage of over 80% during all four quartiles between 1973 and 1992. This was the same percentage of their study for the biological sciences. Other disciplines in Kushkowski’s review indicated ranges of 65% to 75% in engineering during the quartiles, social sciences 55% journal proportion, and a significant increase in the arts and humanities references to journals from just under 20% in 1973–1977 to 50% in the 1988–1992 quartile.

Other disciplines with dissertation analyses reflected the following percentiles for journal references:

Zhang’s ( Citation 2013 ) chemical engineering: 71.4%; Kayongo and Helm ( Citation 2012 ) Arts & Humanities: 23%, Engineering: 78%; Social Sciences: 46%. Eckel ( Citation 2009 ) reviewed a variety of engineering doctoral dissertations resulting in 44.3% journal reference percentage. This was significantly more than the 29.3% found in the same study for Master’s theses journal references. Dotson and Franks ( Citation 2015 ) results included civil engineering with 61.0%; computer science: 34.1% (second ranking after conferences at 41.8%) and mathematics with 58.1% journal references. Flynn’s Math and statistics review had 57% of journal references. And Sinn ( Citation 2005 ), also, in math and statistics was 65.9%.

Phillips ( Citation 2018 ) examined 916 science dissertations in seven disciplines over a ten-year period (2008–2017) at City University of New York. His focus was on commercial publishers and their marketing influence in dissertation research and references. Of the 144 chemistry dissertations, there were an average of 10.28 book references per dissertation. Physics averaged 8.59 books referenced per the 129 dissertations. The percentage of commercial publishers 83.6% in chemistry and 71% in physics.

Cole, et al. measured small numbers of book references in several engineering disciplines including no books in computer engineering, 12 references (mostly in the 1960s) in civil engineering; Electrical engineering cited books, including textbooks, but more frequently in earlier decades of their 1950–2017 study, and less than 20% for references to books in industrial engineering (Cole et al. Citation 2018 ).

Flynn ( Citation 2020 ) citation analysis of math and statistical dissertation between 2009 and 2019 indicated a 25.3% rate of books and 5.2% of book chapters. This coincided with other math dissertation citation analysis studies of 34% (Kayongo and Helm Citation 2012 ), 27.1% (Dotson and Franks Citation 2015 ), and math and statistics combined of 27% (Sinn Citation 2005 ).

Franks and Dotson ( Citation 2017 ) analysis of dissertation book references also did not indicate print or electronic access due to citation formats, i.e., no print-format references and/or Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) were included. The inclusion of DOIs in book and/or book chapter references would help libraries be better able to scrutinize electronic usage statistics.

Flaxbart noted some barriers to books being cited in dissertation including discovery where books and book chapters were not generally indexed as well as journal articles. His review of chemistry dissertation book references at UT Austin had a downward trend. This has changed with Scopus and Google Books and publishers indexing chapters more robustly. As more libraries have implemented electronic first collection mandates, perhaps the references to books and chapters will increase over time. Flaxbart also noted that students may be reading books for the background information, but not citing them, or perhaps faculty advisors are not as supportive of book references in dissertations as journal articles (Flaxbart Citation 2018 ).

This study’s citation analysis uncovered 49 out of 50 dissertations in both physics and chemistry, which had at least 1 book reference. There was a slight increase in chemistry book references during the 1980s and 1990s decades but decreased to an overall 6% during the 2010s (8% average over all decades).

Physics during the 1970s had the highest percentile of book references, 19%, but has decreased over the following decades to a low of 8% in 2010 with the median age of 13 years. UIUC started to license and purchase all Wiley, Springer, and Elsevier e-books (except textbooks) content around 2015. This default arrangement has enabled the library to provide these major commercial publishers’ content effortlessly and efficiently, so it is unfortunate that the book citation numbers have not increased or remained stable.

The use of other Master’s theses or Ph.D. dissertations have varied over the years. Overall references to dissertations were very minimal with 1% in chemistry and 3% in physics over the five decades. Often the dissertations were from other graduate students from UIUC. However, other times, they were to dissertations from other US academic institutions and occasionally from foreign schools. With accessible electronic access to dissertations through ProQuest Theses and Dissertation Abstract and Index (PTDAI) and the Networked Digital Library to Theses and Dissertations ( https://ndltd.org/ ), and more schools putting digitized copies of their theses and dissertations into institutional repositories, the discovery and access has become much easier. However, it was the earlier decades that had more references to national and international dissertations.

Dotson and Franks ( Citation 2015 ) also measured a decline in references to thesis and dissertations in their citation analysis, despite increases in electronic access to ETDs, ProQuest, and NDLTD. They suggested that often faculty advisors were aware of the research of the cited dissertation and provided access to dissertations and this would be a factor for earlier decades when finding theses and dissertations would have been more difficult. However, they also concluded that the decline could be the viewpoint that other graduate student work is less significant and/or faculty advisor influence or embargoes that deter access to the most current research (Dotson and Franks Citation 2015 ).

Gooden’s ( Citation 2001 ) chemistry dissertation citation analysis as the “other” category was the references to other dissertations or theses, but often had deficient information.

Many other citation analysis studies categorized conference papers in the “other” category. (Becker and Chiware Citation 2015 ; Gooden Citation 2001 ) Of course, other studies that looked at computer science dissertation references indicate higher percentages of conference proceeding references over journals and books (Dotson and Franks Citation 2015 ; Kayongo and Helm Citation 2012 ). Kayongo and Helm, whose citation analysis covered many disciplines, noted that conference proceedings are also cited heavily in Electrical Engineering and Economics (Kayongo and Helm Citation 2012 ).

Zhang’s analysis found conference proceeding references in 2% of the chemistry dissertations with a total of 78 references over 10 years (Zhang Citation 2013 ).

A 2014 atmospheric science study found a higher number of references to conference papers, along with book references, when compared to atmospheric science faculty publications. Kaczor attributed this to doctoral students’ foundational research (Kaczor Citation 2014 ).

This study found higher references to conference proceedings during the 1970s for physics yet declining throughout the decades. For physics, there were a total of 53 conference references with the maximum age being 50-year difference between the dissertation publication date and the year of the proceeding. The average age of conference papers was 9.61 years, median age was 5 years, top 25% cited were at 3 years, and 80% were 13 years.

Chemistry dissertations in this analysis had a result of 21 conference references. The maximum age was 22 years and the average age was 2.75 years with a median of 3 years. The top 25% were published within 1 year of the dissertation and 80% were by 5.2 years.

As Barnes noted in the citation analysis of the US Government documents, the migration of technical and government reports to online environment from print may have resulted in students utilizing the online resources but not citing them in their dissertations (Barnes Citation 2006 ).

Table 4. Aging for articles-books-dissertation chemistry references.

Table 5. aging for articles-books-dissertation physics references..

Technical report usage was higher in the earlier decades of this study but declined steadily with reference averages over the five decades at 1.93 for physics and .24 for chemistry. Most reports cited in physics dissertations were from the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), Rand Corporation, and labs associated with the US Department of Energy (DoE). A few were from academic institutions such as Stanford and MIT, and two were from CERN. A total of 65 technical reports were referenced in physics, with the oldest being from 1957. The average age in comparison to the published dissertation year was 9.67 with a median age of 6 years, the top 25% of technical reports cited in physics was within 3 years and 80% at 14 years.

In the chemistry dissertations in this study, reports were much less frequent with total of 18 technical report references. With an average age of 5.44-year difference from the dissertation date, the oldest from 1962. The median age was 8.5 years, top 25% within 1 year, and 80% at 10.8 years. Chemistry technical reports were mainly industry-related such as Aldrich Chemical and IBM, but a few from DoE National laboratories.

Many citation analysis studies include an “other” category but reference and/or material types are variable. For example, Gooden grouped many various cited material types including technical reports, conference papers, personal communications, and patents together as “other,” which resulted in a large percentile falling into that category.

This study categorized personal communications, websites, manuals, software, equipment, processes (mainly in chemistry), patents, preprints, and websites. There were some “one-offs” including a reference to the 1922 documentary film “Nanook of the North” from a 2010-decade physics dissertation. A drug-related press release was also cited in a 1990s chemistry dissertation. The most numerous “other” references in physics dissertations were 40 personal communications, 19 arXiv preprints, 10 web references (including Wikipedia entries), and 8 types of equipment utilized.

Chemistry dissertations cited 29 personal communications, 18 processes, 15 patents, 10 softwares, and 4 data resources. In both disciplines, the references to personal communications were more numerous in the early decades. None of them noted that the communications were in e-mail or written format.

Unlike other dissertation citation analyses, this study found no references to technical or industry standards.

Other notable findings included:

References to Wikipedia or other non-peer reviewed resources. Although only three times in only one dissertation, it was surprising – and disappointing – to see this instead of citation to reference resources such as a scientific dictionary, handbook, or encyclopedia. Reference books would certainly have been better cited than the Wikipedia references found in some other dissertation bibliographies as peer reviewed general sources.

Eckel's review of engineering doctoral dissertations ranged in number of years for various material types. Conference proceedings’ average age of 9.2 years and 42% being less than 5 years are comparable to this study, albeit in engineering disciplines. Likewise, scholarly journals were 16.6 years, with 22% being less than 5 years.

Kushkowski et al. ( Citation 2003 ) study indicated a small increase (approximately 7 years to 12 years) in the average age of physical science references over the two decades between 1973 and 1992. Their study divided the years into 5-year increments and indicated a decrease in average reference age for engineering and social science dissertations.

Kaczor's atmospheric science dissertations discovered an average of 9-year journal age for 52.6% of the references, and 31 years for 90%. This result was slightly “younger” than the physics ages in this study.

Zhang’s ( Citation 2013 ) study in chemistry had consistent findings with 53.4% of articles, books, and conference proceeding references being 10 years or less. That study found book references that were over 20 years comprising 28%, whereas journal articles (31.4%) and conference proceedings (30.8%) less than 5 years were the highest percentage. These results are like Ortega’s analysis of reference age in chemistry journals in which 25% of article references were less than 5 years and 90% were 26 years or less.

Rose-Wiles ( Citation 2022 ) study of chemistry dissertation study over a 10-year period and had a median age of references range from 9.0 (2011) to 14.8 (2009) with a resulting median age of 11.8 years and a slightly older 13.2 years for books.

This study found that 46 journal articles and 4 books were the oldest references in chemistry across all decades with 1783 journal articles from Proceedings of the Royal Society referenced in a 2010 dissertation.

Surprisingly, there was one 1994 physics dissertation with the oldest reference to both a journal article and book published in 1953. Otherwise, the totals were similar with 40 oldest references to journal articles and 8 to books.

Figure 3. Chemistry journal minimum, 25%, median, 80% and maximum reference ages.

Figure 4. Physics journal minimum, 25%, median, 80% and maximum reference ages.

Almost every dissertation has at least one article reference that had been published in the same or within the prior year. This has increased to 2 years (Physics in 2000 and Chemistry in 2010). However, the top 25% references have also increased to 6 years in both disciplines.

In both disciplines, the median age had increased significantly for journal articles and increased from approximately 10 years to 20 over the five-decade period. Both disciplines have shown similar increases in the 80% and maximum age growth. In the 2010 decade, both disciplines had maximum age outliers with chemistry at 97 years and the physics outlier of 85 years.

Tables 4 and 5 reflect the age averages for articles, books, and dissertations. Despite the two different disciplines, it is interesting to see the similarities of ages of journal article and book references. The various ages of referenced books differed with chemistry increasing slightly.

In physics, the average and 80% ages to other dissertations were surprisingly much older than expected, with an average of 18 years, but the top 25% were less than 4 years. Both disciplines, however, referenced dissertations from the late nineteenth century.

The arXiv preprint references in this study were an average of 3 years. This is less than the 8.4-year average found in Flynn’s math and statistics dissertation arXiv references. The oldest arXiv preprint cited in Flynn’s study was 27 years, and this study was 4 years. As Flynn reflects, since many arXiv preprints are often published in peer-reviewed journals within 2.5 years, it is surprising to see older arXiv preprints referenced in lieu of the journal articles. Flynn indicates that it may be attributed to the faculty advisor provided the arXiv version or that it was not eventually published in a journal (Flynn Citation 2020 ).

This local dissertation study has shown that chemistry and physics graduate students reference a wide range of document types with a reliance on the most recent materials. Both disciplines primarily reference journal articles but also rely on foundational monographic literature. For both chemistry and physics dissertations, the overall numbers of references have significantly increased during the most recent decade and the age of references has also doubled. This has increased the median age of referenced journal articles in physics from 10 to 20 years and chemistry from 11 to 20 years as well.

For the most part, digital object identifiers (DOIs) are not utilized in dissertations written after 2000. This could be because they are not required by departments or graduate colleges for dissertation submission. It would be good if this changed since many federal funding agencies have started to require them for grant applications. They would also be useful to help librarians determine when online resources were used for collection development, bibliometric studies, and other usage statistics. Several articles noted that references did not indicate electronic formatted materials (Gooden Citation 2001 ; Kushkowski Citation 2005 ). Reviewing more current, additional dissertations in the local ETD system found that some dissertations did include DOIs; however, many of them were inconsistent in that not all references included the DOIs, especially for older references. This could be that the students are finding the references through other bibliographies and DOIs were not included and that often locating retrospective DOIs to references is often difficult to locate. Gooden also noted that users prefer online access to materials, yet less than 1% of the references she reviewed referred to the online version. She attributes this to students being unaware of electronic formats in citing style guides. In Kushkowski et al. ( Citation 2003 ) study, they commented that electronic content may be shrinking usage reliance on printed materials, which has undeniably happened, but it would be advantageous for libraries to measure electronic library usage via student dissertation bibliographies for both collection development and awareness of research focuses. Kushkowski also questions the increase in electronic content and how changes in research methodologies could be affecting reference inclusion.

This study confirms that doctoral students are often citing surprisingly older materials and sometimes unexpected content. The outlying maximum age of recently referenced journal articles and books published in the nineteenth century are still being cited and should indicate that collections are best evaluated by both obsolesce age and circulation and usage review. However, the number of references to monographs and dissertations decrease with median age decreasing in both disciplines.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Jeff Loftiss, staff member in the Chemistry Library for his work on this study.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Appendix 1:

Comparison of other chemistry and physics dissertation reference studies.

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Department of Physics

Senior Theses

The senior thesis is the capstone of the physics major and an opportunity for intellectual exploration broader than courses can afford. It is an effort that spans the whole academic year. The thesis is a great opportunity to dive into research on an aspect of physics which most engages you. Whether your thesis is on biophysics, gravity and cosmology, condensed matter, or string theory, writing it is a way to put to use all that you have learned in coursework so far—and to make a contribution to scientific knowledge. Even for topics outside of the mainstream of physics, for example with a focus on policy, or neuroscience, or finance, we expect you to apply your undergraduate physics education to the problem you focus on.

You can build on previous work in your senior thesis, for example summer work or a junior paper. However, it is equally acceptable to start a brand new project in the fall of your senior year with an adviser you have not previously worked with. In any case, in order to have a level playing field, your thesis will be evaluated based on work done during the academic year.

You must submit your choice of adviser and topic in Canvas by 3:00pm October 3. Your adviser must have a full-time faculty appointment at Princeton University. Your adviser can be one of your junior paper advisers, but need not be. If your adviser does not have their primary appointment in the Physics Department, you must communicate your choice of second reader in Canvas by October 3, and this second reader must have a full-time faculty appointment at Princeton University with their primary appointment in the Physics Department.

You must turn in a draft of content for your senior thesis by 3:00pm January 16, as explained in the section entitled Fall term draft .

The final version of your senior thesis is due by 3:00pm of the University's deadline for submitting the senior thesis, April 29. The requirements for formatting and submitting your final senior thesis are somewhat detailed;  please consult the section entitled Thesis Formatting and Submission . The page on important dates gives a complete listing of dates and deadlines relevant to the senior thesis. In case of any confusion about dates and deadlines, the page on important dates should be regarded as authoritative.

An oral examination conducted by the the Senior Committee at the end of the senior year serves as the senior departmental examination. This exam is described in more detail below in the section entitled Oral Examination .

Department of Physics Independent Work Guide

Senior committee.

A committee of several faculty in Physics oversees all the senior theses. In AY 2024-2025, the committee members are Professor(s) William Jones (chair), Lyman Page, Shinsei Ryu and Jason Puchalla. The senior committee is assisted by Karen Olsen, the Undergraduate Administrator. The committee meets with the seniors at the beginning of the academic year to outline what is expected and to help them get started on choosing advisers and topics. The committee may establish milestones during the year (e.g. a due date for a thesis outline and/or an oral progress report) in addition to the ones indicated on this webpage; any such additional milestones will be announced to all seniors via e-mail and clearly indicated on the important dates  page. You are encouraged at any time to approach members of the senior committee with questions or concerns about the progress of your thesis work.

Getting Started

The best advice in finding an advisor is to go to several faculty members in areas of research that you are interested in, and see what topics they propose. If you have a topic to propose yourself, great: shop it around to faculty and see what they think. Most topics come from faculty as part of the work their research groups are conducting. When you have a tentative topic in mind, start by reading some of the literature, ideally at the Scientific American level, in order to understand the highlights and context of the work you'll embark on. If you're undecided between topics, this first stage of reading should help you choose. Make sure to circle back to your prospective adviser with questions, and confirm with them before the deadline that they are in fact prepared to advise you on a topic that you have both agreed on. It's important to start this process at the very beginning of term, because false starts are possible.

The most important advice we can give is to make a fast start on your senior thesis, and focus on it particularly at the start of the fall term. Adjust your courses accordingly; for instance, senior fall is not the right time to shop five courses. Experience suggests that distractions and delays occur from time to time, both expected (e.g. grad school applications) and unexpected (e.g. your adviser disappears to a conference just when you need help). If you have a good start on your thesis you can put it aside briefly when such a delay occurs. If you don't, it becomes harder and harder to catch up. Regardless of where you are in the term—and especially early on—the best advice is to set your senior thesis at top priority.

Students considering thesis topics mostly or entirely outside of physics should consider the application procedure outlined in the section below entitled Alternative grading rubric .  Please note that time is of the essence in applying for an alternative grading rubric.

Fall Term Draft

A draft of content to be included in your senior thesis must be turned in to Canvas by 3:00pm on January 16. The second reader must be identified in Canvas at the time you turn in this draft of content. (Even if you have previously identified your second reader, e.g. because you are working with a primary advisor outside the department, please confirm this choice at the time of turning in your draft of content.) This draft of content will be assigned a P/D/F grade by your advisor and second reader, and the grade will be reported to the senior committee; however, it will not appear on your Princeton transcript. The draft of content is intended to serve as a status check and a way to start the conversation with your advisor and second reader about the spring term end game for your thesis. The guidelines for the draft of content are as follows:

• The minimum length is 7 pages, plus front matter and bibliography.
• The document should be written in full sentences and paragraphs, in the style you intend for the final version of your senior thesis. An outline of work to follow can be included at the end, but the main focus of the document should be on what you have understood and done so far.
• Formatting should be the same that you intend to use in the final version of your senior thesis; in particular, front matter (including the Student Acknowledgment of Original Work, signed), introduction, main body, and bibliography should be present, with all the formatting as you intend for the final version of your senior thesis. In short, follow the guidelines in the Primary grading rubric .  Indicate clearly in the front matter that the document is a draft of content.
• While it is anticipated that your results will be quite incomplete, do make an effort to communicate the background in an accessible fashion that starts with the fundamentals and demonstrates your understanding of the context of your ongoing work.

Thesis Formatting and Submission

You must submit your thesis electronically as a PDF file.  The first few pages of your senior thesis are called the front matter.  Front matter must include in the first two pages the title, the student's name, an abstract, the Student Acknowledgment of Original Work, and a signature following this acknowledgment. The wording of the Acknowledgment must be as set forth in the current edition of Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities: "This paper represents my own work in accordance with University regulations.”   The Page formatting should be suitable for printing on standard 8.5" x 11" paper with one to one and a half inch margins all around the main text. All fonts should be between 10 and 14 points, and line spacing should be anywhere between double spacing and 1.5 spacing. Pages should be numbered, with numbers no closer than half an inch to any edge of the page. Figures should be clear and legible, with descriptive captions.  Figures should be  your original work or else credit should be clearly given in the caption to the figure creator.  You should request permission to re-use figures made by colleagues.  There is no length requirement, but a total length (including front matter, bibliography, figures, appendices, etc) of 50 to 100 pages is about right for most topics.

The deadline for submission of the senior thesis is 3 pm April 29. For the spring semester of 2024, no hard copy submission will be required.   By that deadline, you must submit your thesis electronically in Canvas.  You must provide an electronic signature for the Student Acknowledgment of Original Work.  Your signature will serve as confirmation that the  submitted version is the official version.  By the end of the day on April 29, you must also send electronic copies of your thesis to your advisor and second reader.  You must also submit your thesis electronically to Mudd Library in order to graduate. Details on the Mudd Library submission process will come by email.  

To set high goals for the thesis, and at the same time to accommodate the breadth of experience that physics majors seek, the Physics Department has a dual rubric approach to grading. The primary grading rubric for the senior thesis is the one set forth in detail in the section below entitled Primary grading rubric .  It should be used for all theses which are primarily focused on a topic in physics, broadly construed. Applied physics, biophysics, astrophysics, plasma physics, and mathematical physics (among others) are fields in which this primary rubric should be used. Every student is advised to take pains to make their thesis accessible to physicists outside their discipline. Doing so is part of good presentation, and it is part of showing the student's own mastery of their topic. The physical principles involved should be explained clearly, starting at the level of undergraduate physics courses. Any necessary jargon should be introduced with clear explanations.

Written presentation is also important and will affect the final grade. Good presentation includes all aspects of scholarly writing, including clear explanations, organization, and citations; correct spelling, grammar, and formatting; a style that is at once accessible and precise; and a logical structure including front matter, introduction, main body, conclusion, and bibliography. 

Primary grading rubric

The main basis for the final grade will be the physics content contained in the thesis as a document. Physics content could include, for example, theoretical ideas, calculations, modeling, and predictions; experimental methods, description of apparatus, results, and data analysis; and an assessment of the significance of the work reported in the thesis against the backdrop of the larger field of which it is part. Physics content can be particularly noteworthy—for instance a really new theoretical idea or a genuinely impactful experimental result—but humbler advances, such as verification or extension of published calculations, or successful calibration of an experimental device, are also highly esteemed. In short, new research results are desirable but not required for even the highest grades.  Scholarly substance is the key.

Written presentation is also important and will affect the final grade. Good presentation includes all aspects of scholarly writing, including clear explanations, organization, and citations; correct spelling, grammar, and formatting; a style that is at once accessible and precise; and a logical structure including front matter, introduction, main body, conclusion, and bibliography.

Grade recommendations from the adviser and second reader are communicated to the senior committee, along with short text descriptions describing and assessing the thesis. The letter grade from the Oral examination will count for 10% of the senior thesis grade. The following grade descriptions are representative of Physics Department grading practices. Any individual thesis may have qualities spread across several of these descriptions, and it is ultimately up to the judgement of the Physics Department faculty to balance the considerations in any given case in order to come up with the final grade.

• A+. A substantial, professional-level contribution to some field of physics, with outstanding presentation and truly impressive content. For example, there may be original results suitable or almost suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed journal which physicists working in this field often publish in. Or the thesis may be a brilliantly written review paper which could usefully be shared with professional colleagues. A written statement from the advisor justifying the A+ must be included.
• A. The thesis deals with some topic in physics in an unusually thorough way, with unexpected insights and/or an especially clear presentation. The advisor should have learned new things from it. This grade should be used for work that goes far beyond "doing a good job."
• A-. The thesis covers some topic in physics well and goes into significant depth. It is written in a professional style with only minor flaws. The student shows mastery of the subject.
• B+. The thesis covers a topic in physics well, and in some depth. The presentation and physics content are good but leave room for improvement.
• B. The thesis covers a topic in physics fairly well. Presentation and physics content are fairly good, but some deficiencies may be noted.
• B-. The thesis addresses a topic in physics but without the depth expected for senior independent work. There may be significant errors or an inadequate presentation.
• C+. The thesis contains an overview of a topic in physics, but the physics content is mostly superficial. The presentation may be inadequate, and there may be significant errors or omissions.
• C. The thesis contains a partial or superficial overview of a topic in physics. The thesis gives little evidence of understanding of the relevant physics. The presentation is sloppy, and there are significant errors or omissions.
• C-. The thesis contains some correct information about a topic in physics, but it fails to show understanding of the relevant physics. The presentation is incomplete, with serious errors or omissions.
• D. The lowest passing grade. The thesis is deficient in multiple respects, with minimal physics content, poor presentation, and/or poor scholarship.
• F. There are several ways an F can result. One way is for the thesis to be largely incomplete and incorrect. A second way is for the thesis not to be turned in on time, accounting for any extensions granted, or for a document to be turned in without a clear written indication that it is the official version of the student's senior thesis. A third way is for the thesis to be turned in on time but with issues that prevent it from being accepted. Examples of this last are omitting from the first two pages the title, the student's name, the abstract, the Student Acknowledgment of Original Work, or a signature following this acknowledgment. Formatting that renders the thesis unreasonably difficult to read may also prevent it from being accepted and result in an F.

Alternative grading rubric

Students wishing to branch out and work on a senior thesis topic that is mostly or entirely outside of physics will have their theses graded using an alternative grading rubric customized to their field of work, provided they receive approval from the senior committee of a proposal submitted electronically in Canvas no later than 3pm October 10.  The proposal must consist of the following points:

• Student's name.
• Adviser's name. The adviser must sign next to their name to indicate their endorsement of the proposed grading rubric.
• Second reader's name. As with all theses in the Physics Department, your adviser and the second reader should both have full-time faculty appointments at Princeton University, and at least one of them should have their primary appointment in the Physics Department.
• A tentative thesis title (200 characters or less).
• Summary of proposed work (1500 to 2000 characters).
• Give us a simple description of the area of scholarship your thesis falls in. For example, "Climate policy" or "Behavioral neuroscience."
• Provide a short explanation of why you are interested in this area, and why it should be of general interest to professional physicists.
• Provide an adaptation of the primary grading rubric that you feel is suitable to your thesis work. The text to adapt is the entire contents of the section entitled Primary grading rubric . Leave the second, third, and fourth paragraphs unchanged, as these sections will be applied in any case; likewise the criteria for an F cannot be changed. Changes to the rest of the text should be at the minimal level needed in order for it to be fairly applied to the work you are going to do. For example, if you are working on climate policy, replacing "physics" by "climate policy" throughout should be a good start. Topics which have some physics content but are primarily outside of physics should include in the grading rubric some measure of how well the physics is developed and presented.

The senior committee may adjust or rewrite the grading rubric you propose before approving it, and the final rubric will go to your adviser and second reader as well as to you.

Proposals that are approved will allow a thesis to be graded at the same standard as other Physics Department senior theses, but in a different direction. Students who do pursue a topic outside of physics should make a particular effort to make their thesis accessible to physicists and students of physics, and this effort will be counted as part of a good presentation. If a proposal is not received on time by the senior committee or is not approved, thesis work will be graded according to the Primary grading rubric : In particular, the physics content will then be the main basis for the final grade.

A fall term draft of content as outlined in the section entitled Fall term draft is required for all theses.

Oral examination

The oral examination will be scheduled near the end of the academic year, after you have turned in your senior thesis. You should prepare a presentation with a planned duration of 20 minutes. Use standard visual aids, i.e. PowerPoint or similar. Presentations should be well organized and thoughtful; in particular:

• If you want to use a laptop, you are responsible for making sure things work!
• Have enough paper copies of your presentation material so that every committee member can have their own copy. Paper copies are useful even when you use PowerPoint from a laptop and serve as a backup in case of a technical glitch.
• Limit your main presentation to approximately 15 slides (depending on your style). If you have more material, prioritize it and put extra material at the end as backup slides.
• Do not expect committee members to flip through your thesis during the exam; your presentation should be self-contained.
• Emphasize graphical material in your slides (including key equations).
• If you have text in your slides, focus on terse summaries and avoid long segments of text.
• Rehearse! You can rehearse before a group of friends, or your advisor, or a graduate student, or an empty room.

The senior committee is entitled to ask questions both about the thesis and about undergraduate physics. The grade for the oral depends on both the quality of the presentation and your ability to answer questions.

The oral examination will be assigned a letter grade by the senior committee.  The letter grade for the oral examination will count for 10% of the senior thesis grade.