Roger Penrose
Born: 8-Aug-1931
Birthplace: Colchester, Essex, England
Gender: Male
Religion: Atheist
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Mathematician, Physicist
Nationality: England
Executive summary: Theory of cosmic censorship
Trained as a mathematician, Sir Roger Penrose is better known for his work in cosmology, including his theory of "cosmic censorship", which suggests that no naked singularities other than the Big Bang exist or can exist in the universe. His contributions to relativity theory have been described as second only to Albert Einstein's, and he has argued extensively that human consciousness is impossible without quantum mechanics. He is also known for an innovative tiling of the affine plane, now called the Penrose tiling, and for his description of a mechanism to extract energy from a Kerr black hole. In collaboration with Stephen Hawking he identified the basic distinguishing characteristics of black holes, and shared the 1988 Wolf Prize for Physics. His uncle was the British artist Roland Algernon Penrose (1900-1984).
Father: Lionel Sharples Penrose (geneticist, b. 11-Jun-1898, d. 12-May-1972)
Mother: Margaret Leathes (physician, m. 1928, d. 1989)
Father: Max Newman (stepfather, mathematician, b. 1897, d. 1984)
Brother: Oliver Penrose (mathematician, b. 24-Feb-1929)
Brother: Jonathan Penrose (chess grandmaster/psychologist, b. 7-Oct-1933)
Sister: Shirley Hodgeson (geneticist)
Wife: Vanessa Thomas (two children)
High School: University College School, London, England
University: BS Mathematics, University College London
University: PhD Mathematics, Cambridge University (1957)
Lecturer: Mathematics, Birkbeck College (1964-66)
Professor: Applied Mathematics, Birkbeck College (1966-73)
Professor: Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University (1973-98)
Professor: Geometry, Gresham College (1998-)
The Third Culture
Royal Society (1972)
National Academy of Sciences Foreign Associate (1998)
London Mathematical Society
Eddington Medal 1975
Royal Medal 1985
Wolf Prize in Physics 1988 (with Stephen Hawking)
Albert Einstein Medal 1990
Knighthood 1994
Copley Medal 2008
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Hawking (28-Jun-2013) · Himself
A Brief History of Time (Oct-1991) · Himself
Author of books:
Techniques of Differential Topology in Relativity (1972)
The Emperor's New Mind (1989, physics)
Shadows of the Mind (1994)
The Large, the Small and the Human Mind (1997)
White Mars, Or, the Mind Set Free (2000, novel; with Brian Aldiss)
The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (2004, physics)
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