Brian May - Böcker

In the summer and autumn of 2006 I read several interviews with Brian May in which he mentioned his desire to complete the PhD that he had abandoned in 1974. I looked up the papers he had published while a PhD student, which were on spectroscopic studies of the motion of the dust responsible for the zodiacal light, and felt that there was a basis for a thesis. Since he had been a student at Imperial, I knew, as Head of the Astrophysics Group at Imperial, that it would be good for the Group if he came and worked with us. I got in touch with him by email and suggested he come and talk about it. He replied enthusiastically and said that he was working on typing up what he had completed by 1974. I gradually realized that I was the only staff member at Imperial who had previously worked on zodiacal dust, so that I would have to act as his supervisor. Eventually we met and I tried to assess whether he would be able to find time for the huge amount of work that finishing off a thesis involves, particularly if it has not been touched for over 30 years. Since some of Brian’s emails were coming from the recording studio I knew there was strong competition for his time.

Bennu, named for the ancient Egyptian phoenix, was the chosen destination of OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s premier mission of asteroid exploration, launched in 2016. Study of the asteroid is important in safeguarding the future of planet Earth, but Bennu is also a time capsule from the dawn of our Solar System, holding secrets over four-and-a-half billion years old about the origin of life and Earth as a habitable planet.In 2020 the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of Bennu and collected pristine asteroid material for delivery to Earth in September 2023. Scientific studies of the samples, along with data collected during the rendezvous, promise to help find answers to some of humanity’s deepest questions: Where did we come from? What is our destiny in space?This book, the world’s first complete (and stereoscopic) atlas of an asteroid, is the result of a unique collaboration between OSIRIS-REx mission leader Dante Lauretta and Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company. Lauretta’s colleagues include Carina Bennett, Kenneth Coles, and Cat Wolner, as well as Brian May and Claudia Manzoni, who became part of the ultimately successful effort to find a safe landing site for sampling. The text details the data collected by the mission so far, and the stereo images have been meticulously created by Manzoni and May from original images collected by the OSIRIS-REx cameras.

First published in 1981, The Third World Calamity is a controversial book on the social conditions, politics, economics and cultural barriers that have, according to the author, stagnated Western-style socio-economic development in the Third World. The book deals particularly with India, Iran and Nigeria, where the author has gathered a large part of the material. The content of the book and the language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this republication. This book will be of interest to students of history, political science, international relations, and geography.

First published in 1984, Russia, America, the Bomb and the Fall of Western Europe offers a dual approach to unilateral nuclear disarmament. While it systematically analyzes and rejects stock arguments for retaining nuclear weapons, from the supposed threat of Soviet invasion to fears of Finlandization and the loss of mineral resources, it examines the issue within the context of Western Europe’s historic fall. This is described with the help from Arnold Toynbee, Plato and Marx. Brian May argues that, if West European civilization is to survive, it must find the moral strength to stand on its own feet, make its own accommodation with the USSR, and abandon dependence on its offshoot on the other side of the Atlantic, whose policies could lead to its destruction. This book will be of interest to students of geopolitics, international relations, security studies and history.

First published in 1984, Russia, America, the Bomb and the Fall of Western Europe offers a dual approach to unilateral nuclear disarmament. While it systematically analyzes and rejects stock arguments for retaining nuclear weapons, from the supposed threat of Soviet invasion to fears of Finlandization and the loss of mineral resources, it examines the issue within the context of Western Europe’s historic fall. This is described with the help from Arnold Toynbee, Plato and Marx. Brian May argues that, if West European civilization is to survive, it must find the moral strength to stand on its own feet, make its own accommodation with the USSR, and abandon dependence on its offshoot on the other side of the Atlantic, whose policies could lead to its destruction. This book will be of interest to students of geopolitics, international relations, security studies and history.

First published in 1978, The Indonesian Tragedy is a controversial book that argues that Indonesia’s lack of economic development is due to the blind attempt to force a Western economic model on a population, whose culture and psychology are unsuited to it. The author demonstrates the ‘Indonesian Tragedy’ not so much by argument, as by depicting the country as he experienced it day to day. In developing his conclusion, he draws on history, and the works of sociologists, some of whom he disagrees with. In this way he sheds light on the predicament of Indonesia and helps to illuminate a problem common to much of the Third World. This book will be of interest to students of history, sociology, journalism, and Southeast Asian studies.

First published in 1981, The Third World Calamity is a controversial book on the social conditions, politics, economics and cultural barriers that have, according to the author, stagnated Western-style socio-economic development in the Third World. The book deals particularly with India, Iran and Nigeria, where the author has gathered a large part of the material. The content of the book and the language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this republication. This book will be of interest to students of history, political science, international relations, and geography.

First published in 1978, The Indonesian Tragedy is a controversial book that argues that Indonesia’s lack of economic development is due to the blind attempt to force a Western economic model on a population, whose culture and psychology are unsuited to it. The author demonstrates the ‘Indonesian Tragedy’ not so much by argument, as by depicting the country as he experienced it day to day. In developing his conclusion, he draws on history, and the works of sociologists, some of whom he disagrees with. In this way he sheds light on the predicament of Indonesia and helps to illuminate a problem common to much of the Third World. This book will be of interest to students of history, sociology, journalism, and Southeast Asian studies.

Take your seats for the greatest tour ever - one that encompasses the whole of the Universe. En route, we stop off to gaze at 100 amazing sights - from asteroids to zodiacal dust and from orbit around the Earth to beyond the most distant galaxies. We start right here on Earth, and your tour guides are cosmic voyagers Patrick Moore, Brian May and Chris Lintott: Patrick is a lifelong lunar specialist; Brian is the leading authority on dust in our solar system, and Chris researches the formation of stars and galaxies.

In Brian May's Red Special you will discover everything about Brian May's unique, home-made guitar. Brian reveals all, from the guitar's origins to playing on the roof of Buckingham Palace, from Live Aid to the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, from the set of Bohemian Rhapsody to opening the Academy Awards in 2019 where the film scooped four Oscars. All of this is accompanied by original diagrams, sketches and notes from the building of the guitar, as well as a selection of classic photographs including Brian on stage with his guitar, close-ups and even an X-ray. Rare images are included throughout, as the entire guitar was dismantled and photographed for the book.

In 2004 a rock star, a TV astronomer and a young research astronomer sat down to write the story of the Universe in the order in which it happened, from its birth at the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, through to its ultimate demise in the infinitely far future.The aim of this book is to explain the Big Bang and everything that followed in a way that made sense, in the strict order in which events occurred, and without using maths, so it would be understandable to everyone, regardless of educational background. The original edition of Bang! was a bestseller, and a go-to for anyone wanting to understand the story of the origins and evolution of our Universe that did not duck the science.Since the first edition, thousands of planets have been discovered, the 'habitable zone' has expanded and a flotilla of new satellites has explored our own solar system, bringing back fresh images and new science. In this book all the latest findings about the evolution of stars and galaxies are included, and the current thinking about our ultimate origins. The latest ideas about Dark Matter and Dark Energy are explained, all illustrated with new images from the world's largest telescopes and space missions.This is the new, updated, popular guide to 'Life, the Universe, and Everything' – The Complete History of the Universe.

Described as the most widely read and influential serious writer of the twentieth century, George Orwell remains relevant in our own era of contested media. He continues to attract a large readership.This book is about Orwell’s post-war cultural moment c. 1948. Taking his Diaries of the time as inspiration, together with his famous final novel, 1984 (published 1949), and treating them as contiguous texts, Brian May considers the gaps, equivocations, and contradictions in Orwell's message and asks what Orwell would have written next.But 1948 is more than a work of literary criticism: rather, it balances critical discussion with creative intervention, being one-half literary-critical commentary, and one-half fictional departure – a novella titled “From the Archives of Oceania,” which quotes, parodies and pastiches Orwell's Diaries, offering a possible prequel. Together these elements offer a resource for the reader to interrogate anew such difficult issues as Orwell's sexism and anti-Semitism; to explore the tensions between various intertwining strands of thought that cast Orwell as both realist and idealist, Puritan and individualist; and to better understand Orwell's curious affection for the natural world.1948 will appeal to all readers and critics of Orwell, but also to students of dystopian fiction, "revisionary" fiction and  "reception study," which highlights the audience’s contribution to an artwork's meaning.

Described as the most widely read and influential serious writer of the twentieth century, George Orwell remains relevant in our own era of contested media. He continues to attract a large readership.This book is about Orwell’s post-war cultural moment c. 1948. Taking his Diaries of the time as inspiration, together with his famous final novel, 1984 (published 1949), and treating them as contiguous texts, Brian May considers the gaps, equivocations, and contradictions in Orwell's message and asks what Orwell would have written next.But 1948 is more than a work of literary criticism: rather, it balances critical discussion with creative intervention, being one-half literary-critical commentary, and one-half fictional departure – a novella titled “From the Archives of Oceania,” which quotes, parodies and pastiches Orwell's Diaries, offering a possible prequel. Together these elements offer a resource for the reader to interrogate anew such difficult issues as Orwell's sexism and anti-Semitism; to explore the tensions between various intertwining strands of thought that cast Orwell as both realist and idealist, Puritan and individualist; and to better understand Orwell's curious affection for the natural world.1948 will appeal to all readers and critics of Orwell, but also to students of dystopian fiction, "revisionary" fiction and  "reception study," which highlights the audience’s contribution to an artwork's meaning.