Roger Penrose: A Mathematician on Black Holes
Summary
Born on August 8, 1931, in Colchester, England, Roger Penrose, from a family of intellectuals, pursued mathematics and science in prestigious institutions. His passion led to groundbreaking work, including the famous Penrose snowflake pattern and proving singularities in black holes. His achievements, recognized with the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, the Templeton Prize, and others, showcase his significant contributions to mathematics and our understanding of the universe. Penrose's legacy inspires curiosity and experimentation in the scientific community.
Roger Penrose was born on August 8, 1931, in Colchester, Essex, Eastern England. He came from a family renowned for their intellectual pursuits. His mother, Margaret Leathes, was a nurse, and his father, Lionel Penrose, was a geneticist. Penrose was exposed to his parents’ careers, which inspired him to pursue his own path in prestigious universities such as the University of Cambridge, University College London, Bedford College London, Research Fellow St John College, King’s College London, Princeton, Syracuse, and Cornell.
While the Penrose family enjoyed puzzles like chess, Roger had a different passion. He loved mathematics and science, favoring math puzzles over chess. He received support from universities to further his education in mathematics and physics. During his academic journey, Penrose engaged in a debate with Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), a debate often likened to the historic Einstein-Bohr debates. This debate marked the beginning of Penrose’s career where he made significant contributions to various fields like mathematics and science.
One of Penrose’s iconic creations was a hand-drawn, incomplete pattern of a snowflake. This pattern emerged from his experiments with pentagons and their relationship to the formation of snow crystals, as detailed by Istvan Haargittai and Balazs Hargittai on Springer Link. This seemingly simple experiment led to the development of today’s well-known Penrose pattern.
Penrose’s achievements extended beyond snowflake patterns. He notably proved the existence of singularities in black holes, which became known as the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems. These theorems aligned with Einstein’s theory of general relativity and offered valuable insights into scientific concepts about the universe, physics, mathematics, and philosophy. To prove this Roger Penrose used mathematical methods to compare with Abert Einstein’s theory. Later found the features of a black hole using calculations. It proves the gravity if an object comes in contact with a black hole and how black hole works by pulling with a force towards the center where everything is collapsed with lots of density.
Roger Penrose’s contributions to mathematics included the creation of the Penrose triangles and Penrose tiling. His work has achieved numerous prestigious awards, including the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, which he shared with Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, the Templeton Prize, the Wolf Prize in Physics, and the Copley Medal from the Royal Society.Penrose’s accomplishments have significantly advanced mathematics and our understanding of the universe, particularly regarding black holes existence. His work inspires scientists and researchers to explore their ideas and curiosities. In an era with limited scientific knowledge, his experiments and theories stand as a testament to the power of curiosity and experimentation. Especially not stopping in his education to learn more and prove his concepts.
Citations:
Hargittai, Istvan, and Balazs Hargittai. “2020 Physics Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose and the Penrose Pattern as a Forerunner of Generalized Crystallography.” Structural Chemistry, vol. 32, no. 1, 31 Oct. 2020, pp. 1–7, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11224-020-01669-8. Accessed 8 Feb. 2021.
Penrose, Roger, et al. BULLETIN Feature ArtiCles.
