I just googled the theoretical maths modelling stuff in Google Scholar and it came up with some different universities that have this...I don't know anything about this at all, but am wondering if you could ask that a well known person in a non UK university, like a Canadian or US university, who does yout theoretical maths modelling, review your work!? Why not? Put it in your thesis submission work plan. Approached strategically you might find someone flattered and willing to do this--the international dimension of anything really seems to appeal to people, and academics in the US might be thrilled to make some contact with a British university.

If you cannot get what you need in your own backyard, go fishing world wide!

An external was proposed a while back that I was very happy with but when I repeated this last time my supervisor didn't seem to remember having suggesed him! I'm hoping it will still be him though.

There is someone in my faculty who coudl definitely do this. I asked him about this ages ago and he has been on sabbitical and tends now to refer all math queries to his new assistant. Noe I had some brief advice from each of them - and on both counts it has turned out to be wrong. This is because they answered to quickly without looking into what it was really about. So I am feeling a bit burned there.

how frustrating that must be!!!! Can you seek out someone from another university that you might know of, through conferences or even their publications, and see if they could provide pre-submission assistance?

I have also been to another dept for math advice but the main guy was clear that he didn't deal with individuls' projects (I think he gets a ton of people begging for this) - but I went to his course and spoke to a couple of postdocs.

You are right. Before I submit I must get an appropriately mathsy person to check it over. There are plenty of them here - it's the delicate matter of getting one to agree to REALLY look at it - I shall have to think about that.

I had just kind of slumped and given up recently and was just thinking - oh well - I guess I'll know if it's all rubbish when the external reads it. Dont' really want it to go that far though :P

Smilodon,
I may be mistaken but I think I remember you saying in a previous thread that you are in Cambridge? If so I can understand your position. I think some supervisors at Cambridge( not all) seem to have the opinion that supervision should consist of: hello your project is this!! I'll see you at your viva in three years time. That appraoch didn't work very well for me as I took early retirement from my PhD.

I do hope everything works out well for you

My Supervisor was a lovely guy, however he was awful at checking things - I'd send him a thesis chapter and he would reply, having suggested about 2-3 spelling changes.. 'capital letter here', type thing - like that matters :-S. Thankfully my 2nd supervisor was changed as one left, so my mate stepped in.. he tore my thesis to shreds and I re-wrote which took a year.. he was also in Computer Science but totally different area and God, it was worth all the heartache.

Coming at it from the same angle but with different knowledge, he was in a great position to read it without knowing too much about it, therefore could clearly see if I didn't explain my concepts clearly enough.

One of my mates submitted after his supervisor 'read it', he was referred as although his viva was sound, his thesis was poorly written.. why? as his supervisor had lied, hadn't read it and my friend now has to re-write the entire thing. I'd reccomend you get someone in to read it in a similar area as they will pick on things you didn't even thing of as you're 'too close' to your own research.

rb - there does seem to be a lot of this about. Or the other extreme.

pc - this is just what I'm afraid of. I am too close to it and I know my supervisor will never read it properly. There have been problems with a few PhDs here but everyone has got through in the end - so far. It feels like Russian Roulette and I don't want to be the one that doesn't make it!

You start to get the impression that PhD supervisors all are on a long ( years and years) holiday to a remote place, that has no electricity, no internet, no phones--they only get messages out once in a great while when they can prevail upon the kindness of some passing ship, that randomly and perhaps mistakenly passes their island--sort of a Gilligan's Island of academics.

Well, come to think of it there was an academic on Gilligan's Island! The Professor! He was always trying to make inventions so that they could get off the island. So perhaps the incommunicado supervisors are clustered under a palm tree on a remote island in the South Pacific, trying to get an invention together to get off the island and return to their universities, and they are so preoccupied with this that even when ships come by they forget sometime to send messages back.

Actually it feels like that's where I am!

And now I can't get that blasted drippy miserable song out of my head. I even sang it to my daughter at bedtime before getting back to her current favourite - my apalling rendition of Steve Tyler's 'I don't want to close my eyes..'.

The other song I keep thinking of these days is 'It's the final countdown ....'.

My husband disowns my taste in music.

Just start singing, "Skipper...! and Gilligan too! The Millionaire and his wife! The movie star, the Professor and Mary Ann, here on Gillligaaannnnn's Isle!" or however it goes...!

So, Smilodon, you feel like you are on a desert island surrounded by Gilligan, the Skipper, the Professor, Maryann, Ginger, and the Howells? which one are you? Perhaps your supervisor is there, in the guise of the Professor? Are all PhD students Gilligan?

Now Olivia - I don't want to interfere with your metaphor here but Gilligan's island isn't really well-known over here. Hmmm. My childhood favourites started with Skippy and Flipper and moved on to Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. Oh and The Tomorrow People.

Or alternatively, I wonder about going to LIVE on a desert island with millionaires, could pack in the PhD, and just pack up some evening gowns ala Ginger, and life would be swell!