Prof. Roger Penrose
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, UK
In development
Curator and author
Featured Author: Sir Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose (b. 8 Aug 1931) was born in Colchester, England. He obtained a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics at University College London and then moved to Cambridge to study Pure Math. After being awarded a PhD in 1957 for his work in algebra and geometry, he took a number of research appointments at universities in England and the United States. In 1973 he took the position of Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, a position he held until retirement from there as Professor Emeritus.
Penrose has received numerous accolades over the course of his career. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1972, knighted in 1994, made a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 1998, and admitted to the British Order of Merit in 2000. He has received the Wolf Foundation Prize, the Adams Prize, the Heineman Prize, the Royal Medal of the Royal Society, the Dirac Medal, the Eddington Medal, the Naylor Prize, the Copley Medal, and the Prize and Medal of the Albert Einstein Society.
Penrose has strongly influenced numerous fields of research. Among many other contributions, he is known for developing the generalized matrix inverse, his invention of twistor theory, his proof that singularities could be formed when stars collapse, his cosmic censorship hypothesis, and the discovery and investigation of Penrose tilings. He has written books on a wide range of topics, including his famous work "The Emperor's New Mind", which in 1990 was awarded the Science Book Prize.
- Spin-coefficient formalism Scholarpedia, 4(6):7445 (2009).
- Penrose tilings Scholarpedia, (in progress).
(Featured author profile by Leo Trottier)
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