Imperial College has seen its share of celebrities pass through the doors, from scientific powerhouses to royalty. Not so long ago, for instance, IC celebrated the centenary and new-found independence from the University of London by inviting HMQ over. A few weeks ago I walked into the building only to run into a photo shoot for another sort of Royal. Queen guitarist Brian May was having his picture taken.I stuck around for a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on. The reason for the shoot was unclear. There was another guy in the picture as well and they seemed to be passing what looked like a thesis between them. I jumped to conclusions. Either the other guy had written some thesis on Queen or worse: May was being awarded some nonsensical honorary doctorate. The impudence! The arrogant scientist in me fumed with indignant outrage. Blood, sweat and tears had I poured into my thesis and here they were bestowing this precious title on some... some rock star?! How dare they! Then last week my eye fell on a news headline:
"Brian May completes doctoral thesis in astrophysics: Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud."
Right... I'll very humbly be shutting up now.
2 comments:
Haha, prachtig! Ik had het gelezen op Volkskrant.nl. Ruim 30 jaar na dato alsnog je promotie afmaken, dan doe ik het nog niet eens zo slecht! ;-)
Je kunt in ieder geval niet zeggen dat hij zijn tijd in de tussenliggende periode niet goed besteed heeft. :-) Kun je het je voorstellen; de rest van de band vermaakt zich met weet ik wat terwijl May in een hoekje nog snel even de nieuwste Journal of Astrophysics leest...?!
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