Kentucky Scientists

Kano Wasiri was shaken, confused, and definitely worried. The deliberating panel, about to grant him his PhD degree in mines engineering, was reaching the final stage of a successful review of his thesis. His mentor, Dr. O'Shea, out of blue and in a voice trembling with outrage chose this ominous moment to berate Dr. Larry McKinley, a panel member.

"There is absolutely nothing that you can say or do today that would change the course of things to come. I am sorry to say this, maybe I should have said this the first time I met you, I stand ready to deflate the bubble you live in, the bubble you have been carrying around here a bit far too long. I can assure you, no matter what you said, no matter how long you said it, the air has already gone from that bubble, and the light that you have missed all along would continue to tower so bright and so high to enlighten the likes of yours for years and years to come."

Under any circumstance, the outrage from Dr. O'Shea was untimely. It was being delivered in the midst of the most solemn review of the lifetime work of his beloved protégé, Kano Wasiri. Dr. O'Shea had suddenly lost his composure when his younger colleague, Dr. Larry McKinley piqued his rage by asking what, in any other instance, amounted to a basic and ordinary question.

The heated exchange taking place in the Conference Room M203 was bewildering to Kano. He had just completed all requirements to receive his PhD in mines engineering with the mention of excellence, the highest grade attained by super achieving doctoral students. The advisory panel and the major professor planning and guiding his dissertation were extremely supportive. They have concurred every step of the way with what they convinced him to be an original contribution to knowledge in the field of mines engineering.

He was then mystified by the strange behavior his mentor, Dr. O'Shea, was displaying during his final PhD dissertation review.

Kano Wasiri had every reason to be worried now after the terrible incident that crashed the entire computer network of the University of Kentucky about a week ago. He was told that his elaborated research has overextended the capacity and the scope of the recently acquired supercomputer. He was using layered upon layered formulas designed to establish the location of the exotic mineral Alpha-M for his PhD thesis. But the formulas created such an infinite dynamic iteration that the supercomputer was overwhelmed and crashed. Furthermore, the supercomputer crash disabled the entire computer network of the university. In other circumstances, the feat was to be commended and lauded for a doctoral student. Unfortunately, this incident became a major problem for Kano Wasiri, a PhD student guided by the famous iconoclast Professor Anthony O'Shea, a gadfly of sort at the Faculty of Mines Engineering at the University of Kentucky.

For all obvious reasons, Kano Wasiri's mentor, Professor O'Shea, took extreme pride in the computer network crash. This was another way to show his colleagues that his lifetime devotion to the research of exotic minerals was not in vain. As a matter of fact, it was being vindicated in the demonstrated limits of the so-called university supercomputer to process his student's elaborate research computation to establish the location of the exotic mineral. He reassured his student, Kano Wasiri, but showed absolutely no concern or remorse about the university properties. While Kano was being seriously reprimanded about the incident at every level of his research contacts throughout the university, Professor O'Shea endlessly bragged, saying, "How we showed them!" This alarmed him greatly at the moment he was preparing to defend his thesis. Now the heated discussion that was taking place during his final examination for the PhD diploma was not reassuring.

His major professor and mentor, Dr. Anthony O'Shea, had convinced him the day before that this final examination session was going to be, as he put it, a breeze. He said that his dissertation had pushed the bounds of mines engineering scholarship to a level where very few students have dared to go. He added that his defense of the dissertation titled "Alpha-M in Mezi Strata" would land him the highest collation in the Dissertation Approval Form. Dr. O'Shea arrived to that conclusion based on comments he said he had collected from the original members of the advisory committee, including the dean of the Mines Engineering School of the University of Kentucky.

This did not include the opinion of the outside examiner, Dr. Larry McKinley, appointed in last minute in replacement of an original member who had a mild stroke four days before the dissertation review date. Dr. O'Shea had discounted the input of this young and ambitious professor, his nemesis, at the risk now of jeopardizing his protégé's final examination and all that he had worked for his entire academic life in the promotion of exotic minerals study.

The discussion between the old Dr. O'Shea and the young Dr. McKinley got so heated and degenerated to a point where the dean of the Mines Engineering Faculty had to excuse Kano Wasiri and to clear the Conference Room M203 of everybody but the advisory committee members for private consultations.

Kano Wasiri, completely dejected, was now outside the school building in complete fear of failing his final PhD examination. He was reflecting over the exchange that his mentor and this young professor had a while ago.

This happened at the end of his final examination when Kano was going over the conclusions of his dissertation...