I wanted Lorena to take Christian to get a monster steak to celebrate because it is a very big deal. They both had their heart set on a hamburger so they went to the Shake Shack instead. That he passed the exam means there is a lot of pressure off Christian now because his committee has acknowledged that he has the skill and understanding to perform PhD level work and that the dissertation he defined is worthy of a PhD on successful completion. He made his oral presentation, got beat up by his committee asking a gazillion relevant and irrelevant questions, got all his committee signatures turned into the department administration, sent off his report and presentation to his benefactors at MIT Lincoln Labs, and now he just needs to write and defend his dissertation.
This is particularly gratifying because a couple of months ago his adviser told him he better hurry up and get his comprehensives done because he was in danger of finishing his dissertation before he takes the exam. There is some chance he will be able complete his dissertation and walk the graduation this spring–a pretty aggressive goal, but a good one because he is chomping at the bit to finish and go on to extend his research into new areas or finds something similar. He (and we) are very grateful he really loves his research area in Information Theory.
It is difficult to explain what a seminal accomplishment this is in a discipline that demands mathematical rigor and also requires the work to be translated into a working field solution demonstrable on real hardware. Congratulations Christian! Again, I say this is a big deal and we WILL celebrate this with a very big steak when I am there at the end of the month whether you want to or not!