IP: a bit of true humor -- Re: IP: Internet Term-Paper Mills

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 18:31:03 -0500
To: farber () cis upenn edu
From: "Richard J. Solomon" <richard () goodread com>


This reminds me of a true and somewhat humorous story relating to a Ph.D.
thesis of a friend of mine, many years ago: My friend's thesis topic was on
a very abstruse topic which I will refer to obliquely as weird molecules
that crawl out of bottles by themselves. By the time he got to writing his
thesis he was the world's living expert on this abstruse topic, not that
the subject was in particular demand by the global physics community. At
this point he remembered that when he was a little child in Brooklyn his
parents bought him a set of the (adult version) of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, and one of the saleman's pitches was that at any time in the
future the Britannica's staff would answer ONE question on ANY subject for
a flat fee of $25 (or something of that order). He dug out his question
certificate and sent in his thesis topic as his ONE and ONLY question,
along with a check.


Months went by, and one day his thesis advisor called him in and said "Want
to make a quick 50 bucks?" You guessed it -- his thesis topic had come
around and somehow (without even the Web) the Britannica's staff found the
only living expert on weird molecules that crawl out of bottles. At least
he made a direct profit on his thesis, which is more than most people have
done.


Richard








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