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This story was told to me by my advisor.

A Ph.D. student in logic was having an extremely difficult time finishing his thesis and was starting to succumb to hopelessness. Every evening he would trudge home, open a beer, and sit down in front of the television. This was the 1960's. Evidently there was a running show called Whiz Kids that showcased the achievments of child prodigies; I'm imagining something of a Johnny Carson style setting involving banter with an unctuous host before a studio audience. One week, the young Harvey FreedmanFriedman was on the show. The host asked Harvey what he had been up to recently, to which the latter responded that he had proved that "every end extension of a model of standard arithmetic has an elementary submodel such that..." and on to the technical details, much to the amusement of the studio audience. The student watching home at that moment realized: that closes precisely the gap I need to finish my thesis!
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This story was told to me by my advisor.

A Ph.D. student in logic was having an extremely difficult time finishing his thesis and was starting to succumb to hopelessness. Every evening he would trudge home, open a beer, and sit down in front of the television. This was the 1960's. Evidently there was a running show called Whiz Kids that showcased the achievments of child prodigies; I'm imagining something of a Johnny Carson style setting involving banter with an unctuous host before a studio audience. One week, the young Harvey Freedman was on the show. The host asked Harvey what he had been up to recently, to which the latter responded that he had proved that "every end extension of a model of standard arithmetic has an elementary submodel such that..." and on to the technical details, much to the amusement of the studio audience. The student watching home at that moment realized: that closes precisely the gap I need to finish my thesis!
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This story was told to me by my advisor.

A Ph.D. student in logic was having an extremely difficult time finishing his thesis and was starting to succumb to hopelessness. Every evening he would trudge home, open a beer, and sit down in front of the television. This was the 1960's. Evidently there was a running show called Whiz Kids that showcased the achievments of child prodigies; I'm imagining something of a Johnny Carson style setting involving banter with an unctuous host before a studio audience. One week, the young Harvey Freedman was on the show. The host asked Harvey what he had been up to recently, to which the latter responded that he had proved that "every end extension of a model of standard arithmetic has an elementary submodel such that..." and on to the technical details, much to the amusement of the studio audience. The student watching home at that moment realized: that closes precisely the gap I need to finish my thesis!