"Bang!" - Another Turnipblog Convergence

In an earlier post, I talked about how as a child it all came together for me in a zen-like convergence of three of the coolest things imagineable during the third season of The Six Million Dollar Man. TV Nirvana.

Thats right: the Six Million Dollar Man fought Bigfoot who came to earth in a UFO. The only way it could have been better is if a Loch Ness Monster made out of Legos appeared, but that would have been far fetched and not believable.

This week there was a dual convergence of two of the coolest things imaginable,

70's Classic Rock and Cosmology.

Brian May (seated in photo) traded rock-n-roll for the big bang as he launched a book about the origins of the universe.

May, who abandoned doctoral studies in astronomy to play guitar with `70s rock legends Queen, has returned to his first love as a co-author of the book Bang! The Complete History of the Universe, which was launched Monday.

Co-written with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, the book recounts the formation of the universe from its origins more than 13 billion years ago and looks forward to its end, several billion years from now.

May, 59, whose guitar playing drives “We Will Rock You,'' “Bohemian Rhapsody'' and other hits, sees similarities between his two great loves, music and astronomy.

“I think there's a sort of purity about both of them,'' he said recently, according to The Guardian newspaper. “Because you can immerse yourself in thoughts of the universe, or in music, and you're really abstracted. You're a million miles away from all your worries and personal problems and the dust and smoke of where you are.”

May's quote is kind of stupid (If you take enough drugs (dust and smoke), you can immerse yourself in thoughts of just about anything), but Queen and Cosmology are both cool.