A reader made sure I saw this today. (Thank you, reader!)
From Brian May's website:
Yes. It's done, and after about 37 years, I am finally a doctor. The oral examination of my thesis, and of me, lasted about 3 hours, and then I retired with Prof Rowan-Robinson, for a few moments, for my two examiners to confer. After only a couple of minutes they called me back into the room and offered their hands in congratulations. Yes, my category was number 2. I understand pretty much nobody gets a 1st category - which is "This is perfect - here's your PhD."
Congratulations to Dr. May on a job well done!
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Impressive indeed. I looked through his website, and you normally don't think of rockers discussing the Perseids or the second law of thermodynamics.
I notice that he says that the examination was private, "The actual oral fencing has to be a completely private affair, between me and my examiners ..." That seems odd to me. My own defense was totally public, and attended by whomever wanted to come. The only private bit was when the actual ruling came down. I assumed that was generally so.
The viva (live defence) is private in the UK.