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Comment by brmgb | Hacker News Reader

> honored him with a PhD in the subject

Just to precise if you were confused like me, Cambridge gave him an actual PhD in Biology based on the book - meaning the book satisfied all the prerequisites of a PhD at Cambridge and he had to do a viva - not just an honorary degree.

That's quite an impressive fellow.

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The way a Cambridge PhD works, I believe – and I think this is the same across the UK – is that the only things you actually have to do are;

a) write a thesis

b) find examiners (internal and external) who agree to examine you; if you're a grad student this is your advisor's job. The examination is by thesis review followed by pass/pass-with-corrections/fail oral exam. It can take as long as it needs to (typically three to four hours), and is in private; it's not like public defenses elsewhere, which are for show, this is a real live-fire exam and I know people who have failed

c) pass

d) ... that's it; there is no part d)

In particular, there are no quals or other requirements; the degree is an old-school medieval masterwork deal. You submit your thesis and get examined on it. Typically you write your thesis through an apprenticeship to your advisor, but that's not actually required, it's just conventional; in Aubrey's case, the thesis was the book and the research proceeded by unusual means over a long period of time. Nevertheless, he got examined in the same way everyone else does, he passed like everyone else did, so he has his PhD.

(source: my own memory, I know Aubrey and have worked with him on a couple of non-science things fifteen years ago, and I got my PhD from Cambridge through the traditional route of being a grad student – thesis at https://aspace.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/218854?show=...)

It was only slightly unusual. de Gray got an undergrad (computer science) degree from Cambridge and married a Cambridge biologist and then worked at a biology-computing lab while writing the book. With the professor and the lab (and the upper class boarding school and multimillionaire mother), the only thing missing was a formal admission to the PhD program.

If you are seeking the Ph.D. Degree under the normal regulations, you are required to have "kept three terms at least by residence" (i.e. have lived within three miles of Great St. Mary's Church for a year) [1]. There is also a minimum time of 9 terms (ie. 3 years) that must be spent as a Graudate Student [2].

The alternative 'special regulations' apply only to graduates of the Cambridge University, or graduates of another university who have been admitted "to some office in the University or to a Headship or a Fellowship of a College" [3].

> d) ... that's it; there is no part d)

Well, the most likely outcome of the viva is a pass with minor corrections, so there typically is a part d - "make the corrections requested by the examiners and re-submit".

[1]: https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/2017/chapter02-section9....

[2]: https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/2017/chapter07-section13...

[3]: https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/2017/chapter07-section13...

I'd forgotten about the Great St. Mary's deal. :-) (I spent my PhD firstly in Jesus College and then living out in a couple of places in Castle and Abbey, so I'm glad in retrospect that I didn't breach those rules...)

I think the spirit of what I wrote is broadly accurate. d) was definitely a rhetorical indulgence!

saw this amusing story about how Prince Charles's bodyguard got a degree from Cambridge https://www.quora.com/Why-do-members-of-the-British-royalty-...

Worth noting that "for a standard undergraduate degree there are specific and strict academic requirements for admission to Oxford and Cambridge" isn't strictly true. A College can vary the admission criteria as it sees fit, and EE/unconditional offers can and have been given.

https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/entrance-...

I think those low offers were typical in the days of the separate entrance exam. I took the (4th term) undergraduate entrance exam for Oxford. When I got the telegram "not required for interview at Oxford" I thought I had failed. But then got accepted with an EE offer (two minimum-pass E grades at A-level) without the need for an interview.

Nowadays the low offers are for those competing in the International Maths Olympiad and similar competitions, so they can spend less time on the irrelevant A Levels.

> viva

I wasn't familiar with this term; apparently it refers to the "oral defense" of a PhD thesis.

From Latin "viva voce", literally 'with a live voice' and roughly meaning 'aloud'.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/viva_voce#English

One of the toughest experiences of my work life was my viva. The examiner picks at every hole in your work and you need to have an answer. Even if the answer is acknowledging it and proposing future work. It's a very useful experience, and when combined with the rest of a PhD, teaches you to be humble and accept that criticism of work is not an attack on the author. I still have nightmares about mine!

At my university you also got a 'viva voce' as an undergraduate if your BSc is borderline between two grades. I received one and yes, I got the lower grade.

It's not strictly limited to just PhDs - at my university, I was required to take one for a year-end undergraduate project.

I'm not sure. Given that he was in a relationship with a professor there, he might have got an easy pass.

So then amateur mathematician is a bit misleading? It sounds like this guy is a marvelous person at whatever he does. How can he be an amateur ANYTHING but have a PhD?

I think amateur in this case refers to non-professional / research mathematician with a PhD working at a University or a Research Institute. You still need to have some serious math chops to get this kind of result, it just isn't reflected in your official title or degree.

"Independent" might be a better adjective for someone like that.

If you're not doing it for profit, you're an amateur. Independent would suggest he could still doing math professionally but on a contract or otherwise unaffiliated basis.

Hmm, that is a definition of amateur; just as "professional" can mean you make a living from it.

However amateur often means - in British English - simply "low skilled" as professional can mean "formally carried out with high competence".

IIRC this guy or his associates dug up soil from a medieval burial site near Cambridge (England) to try and find a bacterial enzyme capable of breaking down 7-ketocholesterol (and hence potentially to cure artherosclerosis). Maybe not Indiana Jones but certainly ingenius and intrepid!

Amateur comes from the Latin amar which means to love. An amateur is someone who does something for pleasure rather than money. Sometimes people use it to mean a novice or someone who is unskilled but in this case the original meaning applies.

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