Weekday Musings: Choosing One's Natural Calling

In 1970, a 23-year-old physics student at Imperial College London found himself at a crossroads most people will never face.

Brian May had spent three years studying cosmic dust — specifically, the zodiacal light, that faint glow created by sunlight reflecting off tiny particles scattered through the solar system. 

He’d built instruments, collected data, analyzed measurements. His PhD in astrophysics was within reach.

But he was also the guitarist for a band that had just landed a record deal.

A band called Queen.

Tours were booked. Studio time was scheduled. Momentum was building. If he stepped away for a few months to finish his thesis, the opportunity might disappear forever.

So Brian May made the choice that would leave his doctorate unfinished for 36 years. He chose the guitar.

What followed was one of the greatest careers in music history.

Queen skyrocketed.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” exploded into the culture. Stadiums thundered with “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.” 

Brian’s homemade guitar — the Red Special, built from fireplace wood, motorcycle springs, and his father’s engineering brilliance — became a signature part of rock’s soundscape.

His PhD gathered dust. His scientific career went dormant. But his curiosity never faded.

Most people would've left the abandoned doctorate behind.

Brian May couldn’t.

Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, even at the height of Queen’s fame, he remained tethered to the world of science. 

He read journals. Attended lectures on tour breaks. Followed astrophysics like old friends follow sports scores. And he never forgot what his thesis advisor, Michael Rowan-Robinson, once told him:

“You can always come back and finish.”

In 2006 — three and a half decades after leaving academia — Brian May walked back through the doors of Imperial College.

Rowan-Robinson was still there. He still remembered his former student who’d vanished into rock stardom. And he was willing to help him finish what he’d started.

The challenge was enormous.

Astrophysics had transformed since the 1970s. Instruments, models, and calculations had all advanced. May’s original data was valuable but outdated. 

To finish the thesis, he couldn’t simply dust off old notes — he had to update his work using modern research, new discoveries, and current scientific standards.

So he did.

Between tours with Queen + Paul Rodgers, between shows and studio sessions, Brian May returned to the equations, the data, the problem he’d left behind at age 23: the velocities of dust particles drifting through the inner solar system.

He rewrote, recalculated, reanalyzed.

In 2007, Imperial College awarded Brian May a PhD in astrophysics for his thesis, A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud.

Not honorary.

Not symbolic.

A real PhD, earned under full academic scrutiny.

At age 60, one of rock’s greatest guitarists became Dr. Brian May — astrophysicist.

It made news not because a celebrity received a diploma, but because the story defied expectation. 

The world loves to sort people into labels: artist or scientist, logical or creative, rock star or academic. Brian May proved you can be both. 

You can build a guitar from fireplace scraps, electrify millions of fans, and still devote yourself to the physics of cosmic dust.

After earning his doctorate, he didn’t frame it and move on — he used it.

He became Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.

Co-founded Asteroid Day to raise awareness about planetary defense.

Worked with NASA on stereo imaging from the New Horizons mission to Pluto, published books blending astronomy with 3D photography. Lectured around the world.

And, of course, kept playing music.

He didn’t return to science to redeem himself or impress anyone. He returned because unfinished work matters. Because curiosity endures. 

Because the desire to understand the universe doesn’t expire with age or fame.

His journey speaks to anyone who ever had to pause a dream — for work, for family, for opportunity, for life. It proves that longer roads can still lead to meaningful destinations.

 That you can step away without abandoning who you are. That passion can wait decades and still be fulfilled.

Brian May’s story isn’t about choosing between art and science. It’s about refusing to choose. It’s about understanding that human beings are capable of living in multiple worlds at once.

The kid who built a guitar with his dad?

He never stopped being the kid who loved the stars.

Some people shred solos in front of 80,000 fans. Some people study cosmic dust. Brian May did both.

And sometimes, the homework you put off for 36 years is the one most worth finishing.

I had read the above forward when it came in WhatsApp last week, while I was sitting in a huge open space, under the shade of trees, with a few stray dogs and seven cute puppies. I was at a center, waiting for my daughter, with three hours to bide my time.

With a gentle, cool breeze flowing now and then, I could not help thinking of a parallel to Brian May, closer home. The one name that surfaced was Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. Here is why.

Mahalanobis (1893–1972) was trained as a physicist, not a statistician. He studied physics at Presidency College, Calcutta, and later at the University of Cambridge, where his exposure to experimental physics shaped his thinking. His early work involved anthropometry—measuring human physical characteristics—not out of abstract curiosity, but as a problem of measurement, very much in the physicist’s spirit.

Physics trained him to respect measurement, error, scale, and approximation. He was less interested in elegant proofs than in what worked in the real world. This attitude shaped his lifelong emphasis on large-scale data, surveys, and applied statistics. It eventually became a national resource for data-driven decision-making through the Indian Statistical Institute, (ISI), which he founded in 1931, initially almost as a one-man intellectual enterprise.

This transition from physics to statistics made him instrumental in designing India’s first large-scale sample surveys, creating the National Sample Survey (NSS) system, introducing statistical thinking into economic planning, and advising Jawaharlal Nehru on development policy, especially during the Second Five-Year Plan.

Like May, he understood that knowledge cannot be siloed. While sitting there in the open, on benches under trees, my thoughts drifted to Santiniketan, which encouraged cross-disciplinary openness. Mahalanobis was deeply influenced by Rabindranath Tagore. and his own intellectual ecosystem did not allow him to work in isolation. ISI itself reflected this spirit: statisticians, physicists, economists, biologists, and social scientists worked side by side.

While May’s story inspires us because it is dramatic, Mahalanobis did something more foundational. He built structures that would outlive him. He worked patiently, methodically, often without applause.

Another point worth noting is the approach both men took. May paused one calling, returning decades later. Mahalanobis, on the other hand, never felt compelled to choose between callings. Instead, he found smooth, elegant overlaps that sharpened his work. He did not demand a thesis statement of life; he allowed his thought to unfold organically and naturally.

You may also want to read my piece on:  Weekend Musing: Beyond the Boundaries of Science

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