Brian May George Orwell's novel of the same name, with vocalist and bassist Tim Staffell. At Hampton Grammar School, he attained ten GCE Ordinary Levels and three GCE Advanced Levels in Physics, Mathematics, and Applied Mathematics. He studied Mathematics and Physics at Imperial College London, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics in 1968 with honours. In 2007, May was awarded a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College London for work started in 1971 and completed in 2007. May formed the band Smile in 1968. The group included Tim Staffell as the lead singer and bassist, and later, drummer Roger
Brian May based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. In October 2006, May re-registered for his PhD at Imperial College and submitted his thesis in August 2007 (one year earlier than he estimated it would take to complete). As well as writing up the previous work he had done, May had to review the work on zodiacal dust undertaken during the intervening 33 years, which included the discovery of the zodiacal dust bands by NASA's IRAS satellite. After a viva voce, the revised thesis (titled "A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud") was approved in September