Queen Guitarist Brian May Writes Astrophysics Thesis
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.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
M. de la Sota @ Aug 6th 2008 1:52PM
Which one of these is not like the others? Owning a blackberry doesn't measure up to grad school! Scratch Mayer from your list.
Erinytes @ Aug 6th 2008 6:49PM
I agree w/M.delaSota - blackberry user??? I find it annoying they put that guy on their "list" & not Mick Jagger, excuse me, Sir Mick Jagger. He's an alumni of the London School of Economics.
scotland @ Aug 6th 2008 8:26PM
I'm not comfortable jumping on the "bandwagon" but truth be told 'being a fiend with a blackberryis laughable when mentioned in the company of the other musicians listed! It's not Mayer's fault just some incredibly weak writer IQ.
scrotie @ Aug 7th 2008 1:34AM
Radial velocities in the Zodiacal dust cloud? You can get a degree for documenting the splatter of a fireworks display as compared to a guitar neck? KOOL !