Congratulations to Dr. Brian May

SinisterMinisterX

Illuminatus
Staff member
(Source)

Brian May is completing his doctorate in astrophysics, more than 30 years after he abandoned his studies to form the rock group Queen.

The 60-year-old guitarist and songwriter said he plans to submit his thesis, "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud," to supervisors at Imperial College London within the next two weeks.

May was an astrophysics student at Imperial College when Queen, which included Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor, was formed in 1970. He dropped his doctorate as the glam rock band became successful.

Queen were one of Britain's biggest music groups in the 1970s, with hits including "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "We Will Rock You."

After Mercury's death in 1991, May recorded several solo albums, including 1998's "Another World." But his interest in astronomy continued, and he co-wrote "Bang! The Complete History of the Universe," which was published last year.

He was due to finish carrying out astronomical observations at an observatory on the island of La Palma, in Spain's Canary Islands, on Tuesday, the observatory said.

May told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he had always wanted to complete his degree.

"It was unfinished business," he said. "I didn't want an honorary Ph.D. I wanted the real thing that I worked for."
 
Wait, what?

That might be the coolest thing I have ever seen.  Congrats to Dr. May, I can't imagine how it would feel to have two dreams like that come true in a lifetime...
 
Wow, this is a life example.  Imagine how pleased he has to feel, I really hope someday I'll do something like that.
 
The first time I ever heard about this was ten years ago, when I listened to a radio interview with Brian. The interviewer asked him if she should refer to him as "Dr Brian May", to which he answered that he never really finished the doctor thingy he'd been working on for two years until he decided to abandon it for Queen. I'm happy for him that he decided to give it another shot.

I remember reading somewhere that Queen is one of the highest educated bands in rock history, i.e. its members have the highest degrees of education compared to other rock musicians. To my knowledge, Freddie Mercury was an art student (as was ex-Smile vocalist/bassist Tim Staffel, whom Freddie replaced later on), John Deacon was studying something mechanical or technical and Roger Taylor was studying Medicine.
 
Hey, hey, Dr. May! It's great to see that guy pursue his dreams, I commend him. Making great music with Queen, now an astrophysicist. Goes to show that you can always reach for your dreams.
 
Perun said:
I remember reading somewhere that Queen is one of the highest educated bands in rock history, i.e. its members have the highest degrees of education compared to other rock musicians.

That's very possible. I only know of two other rock stars with PhDs:

Kim Thayil, lead guitar for Soundgarden, has a PhD in philosophy.

Dexter Holland, lead vocal for the Offspring, has a PhD in biochemistry.
 
That's actually really interesting...and scary.  When we consider most of the blokes in Maiden never finished high school, and I think Bruce with his BA has the most education...
 
SinisterMinisterX said:
That's very possible. I only know of two other rock stars with PhDs:

Kim Thayil, lead guitar for Soundgarden, has a PhD in philosophy.

Dexter Holland, lead vocal for the Offspring, has a PhD in biochemistry.

Wasn't the band leader of Bad Religion a Theology professor or something?
 
Dunno, don't care enough to look it up. If so, props to him.

Other rock stars who were teachers:

Sting taught high school, or whatever they call that in England - which was the real-life inspiration for the Police song "Don't Stand So Close To Me".

Gene Simmons of Kiss taught in New York City. I think he taught 6th grade (kids would have been 11 or 12 years old). Somehow I wouldn't trust him around kids. Fer cryin' out loud, he's the God Of Thunder.
 
Perun said:
Wasn't the band leader of Bad Religion a Theology professor or something?

Indeed! Not exactly Theology but I also thought of him immediately.

Greg Graffin (age 42) attended El Camino Real High School, then double majored in anthropology and geology as an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles. He went on to earn a masters degree in geology from UCLA and received his Ph.D. in evolutionary paleontology from Cornell University. However, according to a video clip originally from the Bad Religion official website and also available from The Cornell Evolution Project homepage, the PhD thesis was officially a Zoology PhD thesis, supervised by William B. Provine at Cornell University. The thesis was entitled "Monism, Atheism and the Naturalist Worldview: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology". It is described as being essentially an evolutionary biology PhD but having also relevance to history and philosophy of science.

Greg Graffin resides in Los Angeles, California and teaches life sciences 1 at UCLA.

This guy must be the highest schooled person, active in a succesful band. Great voice and excellent intelligent and intellectual lyrics. It's easy to consume because of the catchy songs! Fantastic band! What I find cool is that he and his mates started Bad Religion at age 15 in the year 1980. A long discography is the result and hopelfully he can continue the band, combining with his work, for a long time!

--------------------

Evolution of a punk-rock professor

Interview:
http://dailybruin.com/news/2007/mar/01/ ... professor/
(Don't forget to watch the video on the left!)


Greg Graffin, the singer for the punk band Bad Religion, is teaching Life Science I while recording the band’s 14th album. Graffin has always balanced his love for science and music, earning degrees from both UCLA and Cornell while recording albums and touring.

web.ae.graffin.picA_t820.jpg

web.ae.graffin.picB_t820.jpg
 
When I said "props to him" about Graffin, it was not sufficient. Thanks to Forostar for an informative post, and much much respect to Graffin.
 
Brian May continues his conquest of academia...

"Brian May, lead guitarist from rock band Queen who has just completed a doctorate in astrophysics, was on Monday named as the next chancellor to Liverpool John Moores University."

Full story here.
 
Interesting, I didn't know about the book, which could be nice for people who are interested in the universe. Thanks!

I keep wondering why no one else did doctorate research into interstellar dust, let's say in the last 30 years. Hard to imagine(?)
 
Neat.  Of course, being a chancellor is far different to being a professor, but it's still an amazing honour.  Sadly, one has to consider that it's also an attempt by his school to capitalize on Dr. May's fame...but hey, my experience with universities is that they are shameless when trying to make their name bigger.
 
Forostar said:
I keep wondering why no one else did doctorate research into interstellar dust, let's say in the last 30 years. Hard to imagine(?)

I admit I've read nothing about the subject, but here's a guess:
Because it's probably very hard to get samples of such dust.
Also because it's not a very sexy topic in astrophysics. All the cool kids are studying dark matter and dark energy.
 
SinisterMinisterX said:
I admit I've read nothing about the subject, but here's a guess:
Because it's probably very hard to get samples of such dust.
Also because it's not a very sexy topic in astrophysics. All the cool kids are studying dark matter and dark energy.

Hehe, as a comment read this: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=941

I must say I'm a bit impressed with Dr, May - returning to academia after over 30 years as a rock star and completing a Ph.D. is quite unique.
 
That book of his is available in most bigger stores. It's got a very elegant design, but it also seems to be about the part of astronomy that really interests me, so I might consider getting it some day for more than just novelty value.
 
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