Zodiacal dust and stuff: The Annual Alumni Lecture 2007 delivered by Dr Brian May

Better known as Queen's guitarist, alumnus Brian May returned to the College to deliver the Annual Alumni Lecture in November 2007

During interviews to promote the book Brian May co-authored with Sir Patrick Moore and Dr Chris Lintott, BANG! The Complete History of the Universe, he made several references to wanting to complete the PhD that he had begun more than 30 years ago, but had put on hold while he found fame as guitarist in one of Britain’s most successful bands of the past three decades, Queen. Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson, Professor of Astrophysics in the Blackett Laboratory and Head of the Astrophysics Group from 1993 until May this year, picked up on this and contacted Brian about the possibility of completing his PhD, but concluded that Brian would not have enough time to dedicate to completing his thesis because, as he put it, “Queen still rocks”.

However, a year on, Brian returned to the South Kensington Campus, which he got to know so well as an undergraduate between 1965 and 1968, to hand in his completed thesis to Professor Kirpal Nandra, Professor of Astrophysics, in August 2007. It was a momentous day, not just because it is highly unusual for PhD registration to have lapsed for more than 30 years, but also because it was the first PhD to have been submitted since the College withdrew from the University of London and became a university in its own right, making it the first Imperial College PhD.

Eagerly anticipating Dr Brian May’s first, and possibly only, lecture on the subject of this PhD thesis Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, nearly 400 alumni and their guests packed the Great Hall of the College’s South Kensington Campus for the Annual Alumni Lecture on Wednesday 14 November 2007.

Speaking about the difficulties that Brian faced having left his research for so long, Professor Rowan-Robinson, said during his introduction: “Brian brought along print outs of what he had written in 1974, before he got dragged away by Queen. It was then that I realised that Brian really was going to have a mountain to climb. He was going to have to review 30 years of work, and although the thesis was quite close to submission in 1974, it would still have been fair amount of work, even then.”

Taking to the stage, Brian noted: “It’s very interesting for me looking out on all your faces, because I know you’ve all been through, not the same experience, but the same parallel of experiences. We’ve all been through this incredibly high-powered machine, which Imperial College is, and it hopefully trained us for the jobs we were about to do and the lives we were about to have.”

Moving on to the subject of the lecture, he commented: “It’s a challenge to make things from your little corner accessible to others. I know I’m talking mainly to scientists, but not necessarily to astronomers.” It was for that reason that Brian elected to call his lecture Zodiacal dust and stuff, so he could cover a broader subject matter than the title of his 48,000-word thesis would allow. 

“We’re interested in zodiacal dust because, presumably, the dust has a lot to say about the way planetary systems evolved,” Brian explained. The dust originates from the tails of comets and asteroid collisions, forming disk shaped zodiacal clouds that can sometimes be seen with the naked eye as a triangular glow above the horizon just before sunrise or after sunset.

“Since the discovery of exosolar and extrasolar planetary systems, the whole business of dust related to comets, asteroids and the way planets are formed has become quite trendy again, and I’m very fortunate that I was able to come back into the subject and make some kind of contribution,” he added.

Photos of the Fabry-Perot etalon that Brian used to measure the wavelengths of light, his personal photographs of zodiacal light, and even photos of Brian himself during his original research in the early 70s were included in his hour-long presentation, which culminated in a question and answer session. Brian was asked about everything from how the equipment he had used during his research had changed, to what his research in zodiacal dust means to the average person, and whether his interest in astronomy had influenced his music.
 
The lecture was followed by a drinks reception of canapés, cocktails and wine in the Senior Common Room, which was transformed with model planets and atmospheric lighting. Many alumni met up with their former classmates, and Brian was lucky enough to be able to catch up with four of his own classmates at the reception.

Visit www.imperial.ac.uk/alumni/annuallecture to see more details of the event.