TITLE: A Question about Doctoral Theses in Mathematics
QUESTION [36 upvotes]: This is most definitely a soft question, which I'm sure may get some negative attention, and perhaps even be voted closed. However, I genuinely would like to generate answers on this matter as it concerns anyone that decides to get a doctorate in mathematics. (Since I believe this is the best forum to do so, here goes...)
Question: Does a doctoral thesis in mathematics have to contain more than an abstract, a proposition and proof of a new and exciting result?
I strongly believe that brevity is beauty to mathematicians and see no problem with a thesis that contains a lengthy abstract (~350 words) to generate enthusiasm and then jumps right into the heart of a novel and far-reaching result. The proof provided is extremely condensed in the spirit of Zagier, leaving almost all details that can be found elsewhere to be found elsewhere, in the works cited. If the result has merit, I see no reason why it can't be submitted or published in such a manner. To support my stance, I offer the following condensed theses:

David Rector, "An Unstable Adams Spectral Sequence", MIT (1966), 9 pgs.
Burt Totaro, "Milnor K-Theory is the simplest part of algebraic K-theory", Berkeley (1989), 12 pgs. 
Herman Buvik, A New Proof of Torelli's Theorem, NYU (1962), 12 pgs.
Eva Kallin "A non-local function algebra" Berkeley (1963), 13 pgs.
Edmund Landau "Neuer Beweis der Gleichung $\sum_{k = 1}^{\infty} \frac{\mu(k)}{k} = 0$", Berlin University (1899), 14 pgs.
Barry Mazur, "On Embeddings of Spheres", Princeton (1959), 26 pgs.
John F. Nash "Non-Cooperative Games", Princeton (1950), 27 pgs.
Kevin Walker, "An Extension of Casson's Invariant to Rational Homology Spheres", Berkeley (1989). 29 pgs.

Although I'd appreciate to hear from anyone worth giving his two cents, I'm specifically eager to hear from those senior members of the community.
Thanks!

REPLY [9 votes]: I'm not 100% sure that you yourself are the author of the thesis rather than the supervisor or some other interested party, but since you are offering to send it out by email I am probably safe in assuming the former.
In either case, I think you should consider carefully whether this is the best place for you to air a dispute with another faculty member. It seems likely that involved parties could recognize themselves or you and that this could be seen as unprofessional behavior.
In any case, what do you hope to achieve by asking this question? You are clearly hoping that M.SE users judge your own case, of which they know only your side, on its merits, rather than simply start a theoretical discussion about thesis length. Even if many or all of the answers agree with you, will this really get you any further in your dispute? The responses of strangers on the Internet are not universally considered to be valuable. If they are helpful for mathematics or programming questions, that is partly because they involve questions of information and verifiable fact.
You should also be aware that comparing your work to that done by a list of great mathematicians might not help your case either. This is frequently done by cranks. As you know, those theses might have been short because they were great, but they were not great because they were short. 
Maybe a better approach would be to find some faculty member whom you know reasonably well and trust and try to get them to see your side of the story, and advise you on how to go forward. If you can't find anyone to take your side, you need to ask yourself is there is a reason for that.
If your result is great it will be recognized as such, regardless of how it is written up. It would be a shame if the matter became a distraction from your hard work, or if it led to the perception that you were arrogant or disrespectful to your senior colleagues.