Sir Roger Penrose´s contributions

[twistor]

I was trying to make a full list of the contributions of Sir Roger Penrose.
What is missing?
1)Twistor Theory
2)Penrose Tilings
3)Penrose Triangles and stairs
4)OrchOR
5)Conformal Cyclic Cosmology
6)Tensors, geometry, and topology
7)Gravitational Wave
8)Penrose Interpretation
9)Penrose Inequalities
10)Penrose Limits
11)Weyl Curvature Hypothesis
12)Strong and Weack Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis
13)Singularity Theorems
14)Scientific Divulgation
15)Spin Networks
16)Penrose Unilluminable Room
17)Penrose Rotation
18)Penrose-Newman Formalism
19)Schrödinger-Newton Equations
20)Penrose Graphical Notation
21)Moore-Penrose Pseudoinverse
22)Impulsive Waves
23)Coliding Plane Waves
24)Penrose Diagrams
WOW

 

[ChrisVer]

I attended to a talk of his, I think about conformal cyclic cosmology... It was nice, but I am not sure- is that even a "believed" field (I mean of common acceptance within scientific society)?

 

[Mordred]

its now part of the ADS/CFT corespondance Anti-Desitter/conformal field theory

 

[skydivephil]

How about Escher's paintings? Some of them are inspired by Penrose just as I think he was inspired by Escher

 

[martinbn]

Penrose process for extraction of energy from Kerr black holes.

 

[twistor]

How about Escher's paintings? Some of them are inspired by Penrose just as I think he was inspired by Escher

That´s right. The waterfall was inspired by penrose´s impossible triangle.

 

[Demystifier]

In his book "The Emperor's New Mind" he also made some original contributions to the understanding of time arrow and second law of thermodynamics. But in statistical physics the Roger's brother Oliver Penrose did much more.

 

[atyy]

I had no idea they were brothers!

 

[twistor]

I had no idea they were brothers!

and also Jonathan Penrose, the famous chess player, is his brother.

 

[Demystifier]

One should also not neglect how much Penrose done for POPULARIZATION of physics and mathematics.

 

[martinbn]

Penrose transform

 

[julcab12]

One should also not neglect how much Penrose done for POPULARIZATION of physics and mathematics.

... I grew up watching Penrose lectures (the projector guy)^^... He inspired me during my younger years while studying architecture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=th3YMEamzmw -

 

[DeIdeal]

I had no idea they were brothers!

I hadn't even heard of him :ashamed.

I had been wondering how (who I thought was Roger) Penrose got his name attached to the Penrose instability criterion of plasma physics.

 

[Demystifier]

Since many didn't know that Roger Penrose has a brother physicist Oliver penrose, perhaps many also do not know that

1) Edward Witten has a father physicist Louis Witten.

2) Bryce S. DeWitt has a wife mathematical physicist Cecile DeWitt-Morette (often signed as Cecile DeWitt).

Perhaps even less known is that

3) Andrei Linde has a wife physicist Renata Kallosh.

For completeness, let me also mention that

4) Eric Weinberg, the co-discoverer of the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking, is not related to the Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg.

Finally, even more amusing must be the entanglement between the following 4 authors

5) http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702225 [Rev.Mod.Phys.81:865-942,2009]
Unfortunately, I am not able to tell anything more about them.

All of the mentioned persons made very important contributions to theoretical physics. Some of them still do.

 

[atyy]

2) Bryce S. DeWitt has a wife mathematical physicist Cecile DeWitt-Morette (often signed as Cecile DeWitt).

One of the things I don't understand in this biography of Cecile DeWitt-Morette http://www.ph.utexas.edu/utphysicshistory/UTexas_Physics_History/Cecile_DeWitt-Morette.html is the term "a tomato" as used by American servicemen in WW2. What was that?

Finally, even more amusing must be the entanglement between the following 4 authors

5) http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702225 [Rev.Mod.Phys.81:865-942,2009]
Unfortunately, I am not able to tell anything more about them.

I knew there was more than one Horodecki, but not having looked at the first names closely, I had not realized there were 4. I suppose the name is uncommon enough in their culture that it is unlikely they are unrelated? Unlike say "Lee" in Chinese culture?

 

[MTd2]

Finally, even more amusing must be the entanglement between the following 4 authors

5) http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702225 [Rev.Mod.Phys.81:865-942,2009]
Unfortunately, I am not able to tell anything more about them.

They were entangled in malfunctioning Japanese Holodeck.

 

[twistor]

Since many didn't know that Roger Penrose has a brother physicist Oliver penrose, perhaps many also do not know that

1) Edward Witten has a father physicist Louis Witten.

2) Bryce S. DeWitt has a wife mathematical physicist Cecile DeWitt-Morette (often signed as Cecile DeWitt).

Perhaps even less known is that

3) Andrei Linde has a wife physicist Renata Kallosh.

For completeness, let me also mention that

4) Eric Weinberg, the co-discoverer of the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking, is not related to the Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg.

Finally, even more amusing must be the entanglement between the following 4 authors

5) http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702225 [Rev.Mod.Phys.81:865-942,2009]
Unfortunately, I am not able to tell anything more about them.

All of the mentioned persons made very important contributions to theoretical physics. Some of them still do.

Also Erik and Herman Verlinde are twins.
And Thanu Padmanabhan married to Dr. Vasanthi Padmanabhan, who has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from TIFR, Mumbai

 

[S.Daedalus]

5) http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702225 [Rev.Mod.Phys.81:865-942,2009]
Unfortunately, I am not able to tell anything more about them.

The Horodeckis, hailing from Gdansk, are very well known in quantum information theory; it's a father (Ryszard) and his three sons. Story goes, they used to have discussions on the kitchen door at lunch time, which had been converted into a blackboard...

Speaking about father/son teams, Roger Penrose's father Lionel, a geneticist and mathematician, has done some interesting work on self-reproducing mechanical automata; IIRC, he and his son have co-authored a paper on a set of mechanical parts that, if an original is present, will self-assemble into copies of the original if the right sort of dynamical impetus is present (i.e. if the whole assembly is vigorously shaken). So that would be another hitch on the bedpost of Penrose's contributions to science. (I just found http://vimeo.com/10297756 of these things in action which I'd never seen before.)

One other famous father and son in physics I can think of are Niels and Aage Bohr, both of whom received the nobel prize.

 

[Demystifier]

One other famous father and son in physics I can think of are Niels and Aage Bohr, both of whom received the nobel prize.

That reminded me of David Bohm and Arno Bohm, each of whom has written a well-known textbook on quantum mechanics, but are otherwise unrelated.

 

[stevendaryl]

In his book "The Emperor's New Mind" he also made some original contributions to the understanding of time arrow and second law of thermodynamics. But in statistical physics the Roger's brother Oliver Penrose did much more.

I think that was a wonderful book, in spite of the fact that the impetus for writing it was completely wrong (Penrose' belief that Godel's theorem implies the impossibility of artificial intelligence).

 

[Demystifier]

I think that was a wonderful book, in spite of the fact that the impetus for writing it was completely wrong (Penrose' belief that Godel's theorem implies the impossibility of artificial intelligence).

I definitely agree, with both statements.

 

[haael]

Off topic, but where do you see the flaw in Penrose's thinking regarding uncomputability?

 

[Demystifier]

Off topic, but where do you see the flaw in Penrose's thinking regarding uncomputability?

Godel's theorem shows that human intelligence is not algorithmic. But even non-algorithmic behavior can be simulated by an algoritmic system. For example, a seemengly non-algorithmic behaviour may emerge from pseudo-random numbers obtained in a fundamentally algorithmic system.

Of course, elaboration would require a separate topic, so let us not do that here.

 

[stevendaryl]

Off topic, but where do you see the flaw in Penrose's thinking regarding uncomputability?

As Demystifier says, that should be a separate topic. I'm not sure which group is appropriate. Maybe General Discussion or Computing and Technology or Set Theory, Probability, Logic and Statistics?

 

[Demystifier]

As Demystifier says, that should be a separate topic. I'm not sure which group is appropriate. Maybe General Discussion or Computing and Technology or Set Theory, Probability, Logic and Statistics?

Physics forums does not seem to contain an appropriate subforum, but see e.g.
http://forums.philosophyforums.com/...k-on-strong-artificial-intelligence-7068.html
http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16045