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A Passion for Patterns, Puzzles and Physics Nicos Starreveld, Raf Bocklandt Interview with Sir Roger Penrose NAW 5/19 nr. 4 december 2018 241 Nicos Starreveld Raf Bocklandt Korteweg-de Vries Institute Korteweg-de Vries Institute University of Amsterdam University of Amsterdam [email protected] [email protected] Interview Sir Roger Penrose A passion for patterns, puzzles and physics Sir Roger Penrose is a British mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of Cambridge University). The last talk was science. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford. about the steady-state theory. In this theo- In July he visited Utrecht for the ‘19th UK and European Meeting on the Foundations of ry he described how the universe remains Physics’ and on this occasion Nicos Starreveld and Raf Bocklandt, editors of this journal, the same and how galaxies disappear had an interview with him about life, the universe and everything. when they reach the speed of light. I did not understand that, how could they disap- Penrose was born in 1931 in Colchester, ten times between 1958 and 1969. pear like that? They fade away maybe, so Essex, England. From a young age he got “I was at school, about fifteen years I went to Cambridge to discuss it with my familiar with mathematics and physics. old, and I had to decide which subjects brother Oliver. His father, Lionel Penrose was a medical I wanted to choose for my final two We were having lunch together and he geneticist, he was a professor of eugen- years. When the headmaster asked me, said ‘I am no expert in that, but a good ics at University College London. He also I told him I wanted to do biology, math- friend of mine is sitting over there, he will had a keen interest into mathematics and ematics and chemistry. He told me it was tell you, he is an expert in cosmology.’ That chess, interests that he transmitted to his not possible to do mathematics and biolo- was Dennis Sciama, so I described this to sons. Penrose’s mother, Margaret Leathes gy together. I then said mathematics, phys- him and he had never seen this argument, was also medically trained, but she did not ics and chemistry. My parents were very he was impressed enough. When I went to practice medicine. annoyed when I got home, they wanted me Cambridge to do research in pure mathe- “My father had a deep interest in math- to become a doctor.” matics we had discussions about cosmol- ematics, we had long walks talking about ogy and physics, he knew everything that nature and mathematics. The physics side Instead Penrose started undergraduate was going on. And this was wonderful ed- came more from my brother Oliver who studies in mathematics at University Col- ucation for me.” was very well read. He used to read to me lege London, where he graduated with a the book Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland.” first class degree. Afterwards he moved to The discussions with cosmologist Den- (Mr. Tompkins is a fictional character Cambridge to do research with Prof. W. V. D. nis Sciama inspired Penrose to make the created by the physicist George Gamow. Hodge, who was a professor in geometry switch to cosmology; he started doing re- In this book he explores a dream where and astronomy. In 1958 he completed his search in geometry and general relativity. the speed of light and the Planck constant PhD, with his doctoral thesis Tensor Meth- In the years that followed, while he held a are different so that you can see relativistic ods in Algebraic Geometry, written under position at the department of mathemat- and quantum effects with your own eyes.) the supervision of Prof. John Todd. ics at Birkbeck college in London, Penrose developed novel mathematical methods Penrose’s older brother Oliver Penrose Moving to physics in general relativity. He introduced the became a theoretical physicist and was a Although mathematics was what he loved calculus of spinors and showed that this Professor of Mathematics at Heriot-Watt the most, physics never ceased to excite. method, when compared to the classical University in Edinburgh from 1986 until his “I was interested in physics all the time. method of tensors, yields simpler equa- retirement in 1994. His younger brother, The thing that set me off in that direction tions when solving Einstein’s equations. Jonathan Penrose, is a chess grandmaster was a series of radio talks by Fred Hoyle This path led Penrose to a much deeper who won the British Chess Championship (British astronomer and cosmologist in understanding of the laws of the universe. 242 NAW 5/19 nr. 4 december 2018 Interview with Sir Roger Penrose Nicos Starreveld, Raf Bocklandt Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Biswarup Ganguly Commons, Wikimedia Photo: Sir Roger Penrose In 1964 Penrose wrote the epoch-making Then we got to a road where we had space-time. Together, Hawking and Penrose paper where he stated the First Singular- to stop talking because of the traffic. As I proved the gravitational singularity theo- ity Theorem. In this paper he introduced crossed the road, an idea came to me but rems and made the theoretical prediction the concept of a ‘trapped surface’ to char- on the other side he started talking to me that black holes emit radiation, called Hawk- acterize a gravitational collapse that has again and the idea locked up into my head. ing radiation. The first meeting between reached a point of no return. Gravitational Later that day he went away and I was Hawking and Penrose is also portrayed in collapse describes the contraction of a thinking ‘why do I feel this state of ela- ‘The Theory of Everything’ but he warns us massive astronomical object, under the tion?’ I felt happy about something, but I to take that movie with a grain of salt. influence of its own gravity, towards its didn’t know what it was. So I went through “Don’t believe the film! The film has center of gravity. Gravitational collapse is the day: what kind of breakfast I had,... all Stephen going to London to hear me giv- the process that gives birth to black holes! things that had happened, one after the ing a lecture. It shows Stephen listening to The ‘trapped surface’ describes the region other. it and afterwards coming at me, saying he around a black hole where light is ‘trapped’ Then I remembered crossing the street was heavily inspired by this lecture. and can’t escape out of it any more. The and suddenly it came back. I realized what I did give a talk in London, but Stephen formation of black holes as a result of I thought of: a characterization of the col- Hawking was not there, only Dennis Scia- gravitational collapse is described by Ein- lapse in a way that has no symmetries at all. ma was. This talk was about the singular- stein’s general relativity, Penrose’s First Sin- It’s basically light rays converging all around ity in the black hole collapse using topol- gularity Theorem states that this process on a sphere, so you have a topological con- ogy. So Dennis asked me to give a repeat will inevitably lead to the formation of a dition. It was just a rough idea: I didn’t have talk in Cambridge, which I did and then singularity. Penrose still remembers the a complete working argument, it was still I did meet Stephen. We discussed things precise moment these ideas came to him. slightly uncomfortable in some places, but and this started him off on this kind of “I was at Birkbeck College at that time the main elements were all there.” thinking.” and a friend of mine, Ivo Robinson, was visiting me. He was somebody who liked At the same time Penrose’s work on Art and Escher talking, he spoke very elegantly and was space-time singularities was inspiring Apart from his work in mathematics and very nice to listen to. He was talking, talk- Dennis Sciama’s brilliant student, Steven physics, Penrose is also known for some ing, talking to me while we were walking Hawking, who wrote the magnificent essay artistic creations as well. His Penrose tiles along the street. entitled Singularities and the Geometry of adorn the floors and walls of many build- Nicos Starreveld, Raf Bocklandt Interview with Sir Roger Penrose NAW 5/19 nr. 4 december 2018 243 ings all over the world and the famous was and what journal we would submit it impossible triangle was first described in to. My father knew the editor of the British an psychology article by himself and his Journal of Psychology and he said: ‘Well, father. Moreover they both corresponded we’ll call it psychology and we’ll send it to with M. C. Escher and inspired some of his that Journal.’ They accepted it and in this artwork. paper we gave credit to Escher and to the “In 1954, I was in my second year as catalog of the museum. a graduate student in Cambridge doing My father sent a copy of the article to Es- mathematics and the International Con- cher — I don’t know if he had this address I gress of Mathematicians that year was to think it went through somebody else. Any- be held in Amsterdam. At one point during way, it did find his way to Escher and he the conference, I was getting onto a bus started to communicate with my father.” and somebody else was just getting off. An example of a Penrose tiling This was one of the lecturers at Cam- Later Penrose also had the opportunity bridge, Sean Wylie.
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