Who is Penrose Sir Roger Penrose? Insights from His Recent Interviews

[Auto-Didact]

Sir Roger Penrose, famous for his numerous contributions to mathematics and physics, is approaching 90 but still pretty active. In this thread I'll post some of his most recent and best interviews.

The interviews tend to be a mixture of him talking about some new idea of his, his prior academic work interlaced with colorful stories about his early life growing up, his time in school and at Cambridge and events later in life working together with other scientists and mathematicians.

Interviewed by Joe Rogan:


Interviewed by Hannah Fry (public lecture, interview starts around 32 minute mark):


Interviewed by Andrew Hodges:


Interviewed by DAI Heidelberg:


Interviewed by Howard Burton:

 

[jedishrfu]

Thanks for sharing these videos here.

What is your interest in Prof Penrose?

 

[Auto-Didact]

Just a fan really. I share a lot of his interests such as GR, the measurement problem, geometry, the hard problem of consciousness, mathematically non-standard ways of doing standard physics, and doing mathematics for the fun of it.

Penrose, unlike pretty much all other living famous physicists, is actually a polymath: a true classical pure mathematician, a geometer turned physicist, a truly bold and independent thinker and a marvelous teacher, writer and communicator.

Historically, this practically puts him in the same category of thinkers known as the universalists, i.e. a small group of elite 17th-20th century mathematicians (starting with Newton and Leibniz), who were also physicists, who moreover weren't put off by philosophy.

It is often said that Poincaré was the last surviving universalist when Hilbert and his followers took over. This isn't entirely accurate, since I can name a few others e.g. Mandelbrot, 't Hooft and Atiyah, while today most potential universalists seem to end up stuck in (applied) mathematics (e.g. Tao, Strogatz, Frenkel).

Unlike those named above however, Penrose seems to be the only real universalist after Poincaré, because he both did mainstream work at the highest levels, in physics as well as mathematics, and at the same time could capture the public's attention a bit as well.

Somehow, most people, especially outside of physics/mathematics, seem to have heard of his recreative works, but remain woefully unaware of the rest, while many younger physicists and mathematicians, already flooded by other content, are totally oblivious; I'm hoping my posts will reach them.

 

[Auto-Didact]

Penrose is on Sean Carroll's podcast:


They start off recounting the events of his experiences of the early GR days, cosmology and other topics. I just started listening, it's pretty good, definitely if you're a fan of GR, cosmology and/or just like hearing story about the history of physics as recounted by physicists who were literally there.

 

[DennisN]

The interviews tend to be a mixture of him talking about some new idea of his, his prior academic work interlaced with colorful stories about his early life growing up, his time in school and at Cambridge and events later in life working together with other scientists and mathematicians.

Thanks for posting the videos! They seem very interesting, so now I have something else besides cat videos to watch on youtube tonight.

 

[OCR]

...so now I have something else besides cat videos to watch on youtube tonight.

Well, you could watch Machine Shop videos, also... .

This Old Tony - YouTube

Abom79 - YouTube

Stefan Gotteswinter - YouTube

Haas Automation, Inc. - YouTube

Check some of them out out... I like them all, but This Old Tony is classic !

I have a lot more bookmarked... . . BTW... Sir Roger Penrose is beyond compare !
.

 

[Mark44]

Well, you could watch Machine Shop videos, also... .

This Old Tony - YouTube

Off topic, but I'm a fan of his as well. I've seen a number of Tony's videos, as well as the next guy on your list. Others in a similar vein are Keith Appleton, who works with model steam engines, and Tubalcain AKA mrpete222.

Abom79 - YouTube

Stefan Gotteswinter - YouTube

Haas Automation, Inc. - YouTube

Check some of them out out... I like them all, but This Old Tony is classic !

I have a lot more bookmarked... . . BTW... Sir Roger Penrose is beyond compare !
.

 

[DennisN]

Penrose is on Sean Carroll's podcast:

They start off recounting the events of his experiences of the early GR days, cosmology and other topics. I just started listening, it's pretty good, definitely if you're a fan of GR, cosmology and/or just like hearing story about the history of physics as recounted by physicists who were literally there.

I really enjoyed this interview! The scope of the conversation was vast, but I sometimes enjoy that, depending on who the participants are. An besides science, I think Sean Carroll has an extra talent in communication. I think he is a very good communicator.