References in a PhD thesis in mathematics I have a few questions about the references in a PhD thesis in mathematics:


What would be a "normal" range of items there? I am not sure if there is only a few items in the reference it may not be suitable. Would 30 be good? 50? Or 100?
Is there any conventional way to order the references?
When I add a paper to the reference, do I really need to read the paper? For example, I may read from some other paper that "the following result was proved in [1]". Then can I also add [1] to my reference by writing "the following result was proved in [1]", without really reading [1]? It is possible that [1] may be too long/tedious/difficult to read, difficult to find, or not in English, etc.
'Normal' is not really relevant. You must reference your sources. You must not artificially pad your reference section by citing things that aren't relevant. The question left then is how many standard texts etc you reference with regard to things like well-known background. This will probably depend on exactly what you study.
Yes, but it depends on field to some extent. In mathematics, references are almost always ordered alphabetically by first author's surname but check your university rules first, then a standard journal or three if that doesn't pin it down enough.
I'm sure this must have been answered before. If you quote something because someone else did, are you certain they were right? People make mistakes (and maybe occasionally deliberate false claims).