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Queen Guitarist Brian May Writes Astrophysics Thesis

by Terrence O'Brien on August 5, 2008 at 06:15 PM



For Brian May, playing guitar for legendary rock band Queen was just a distraction from his quest for a doctorate in Astrophysics. The guitar god's thesis titled 'A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud' examines the phenomena of Zodiacal light, a dim cone of light that can be seen in the western sky just after sunset and in the eastern sky before dawn.

The light is caused by the reflection of sunlight off of interplanetary debris and dust, though in dark rural areas the glow has been confused for the first light of dawn. May's thesis focused on a series of measurements taken in 1971 and 1972 by the The Fabry-Perot Spectrometer in the Canary Islands.

Of course, Brian May isn't the first musician to fly his geek flag or to spend time pursuing academic accomplishments. Here are a few more famous musicians who are probably smarter than you are:
  • Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine graduated From Harvard. As did Rivers Cuomo of Weezer.
  • All of the founding members of Devo attended Kent State University.
  • Colin Greenwood, bassist for Radiohead, graduated from Cambridge University.
  • John Mayer is an avid tech geek and Blackberry fiend.
  • Dexter Holland of Offspring was a PHD candidate in molecular biology at USC.
  • Art Garfunkel has both a BA in Art History and a Master's in Mathematics from Columbia University.
[Source: USA Today]

Tags: astrophysics, brian may, BrianMay, college, geek, music, queen, school

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