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Brian May, Rock Legend, Soon-To-Be Astrophysicist
xPsi writes "Brian May, the guitarist for the legendary rock band Queen (age 60), has finally decided to submit his Ph.D. thesis in astrophysics. The title is 'Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud.' From the article: 'May was studying astrophysics at Imperial College when he formed Queen with singer Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor in 1970. He dropped his doctorate research into interstellar dust as the band met with increasing success.' And, hey, if this whole Rock-n-Roll thing doesn't pan out, at least he'll have something to fall back on."
You must be an American. I've never seen why people feel they need a "second" PhD. It's like re-taking your driving test in a different colour car. Once you have demonstrated that your ability to research and discover (or philosophize) is sufficient it doesn't matter what field you move to, you'll always be at that standard. The only reason I can see is that in some countries a PhD isn't just several years of research but also includes a few years of tedious learning - things that really should have been taught on an undergraduate course. So in fact what you really want to do is read for a BA (or BSc) in a new area - just do it at a good university (which unfortunately rules out most).
fuck science.
-1, Off Topic!