Roger Penrose
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose OM FRSis an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhysicist
Date of Birth8 August 1931
colour colours english-physicist pattern plane produce shapes
The idea is if you use those two shapes and try to colour the plane with them so the colours match, then the only way that you can do this is to produce a pattern which never repeats itself.
english-physicist fiction giving good ideas science useful
I like science fiction movies, but I think they are useful for giving us ideas and I think science fiction is very good at giving ideas.
english-physicist entire five lights points rays space whose
Entire lights rays - you see if you made space, each of whose points represented an entire light ray, you'd find that space had five dimensions.
consciousness existence known phenomenon
Consciousness is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known
consciousness made existence
Consciousness ... is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.
motherhood world morality
If you didn't have any conscious beings in the world, there really wouldn't be morality but with consciousness that you have it.
running thinking views
There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance. Some people take the view that the universe is simply there and it runs along-it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe, I think that there is something much deeper about it, about its existence, which we have very little inkling of at the moment.
example strange mystery
There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions, ....
plato ideas mind
I imagine that whenever the mind perceives a mathematical idea, it makes contact with Plato's world of mathematical concepts... When mathematicians communicate, this is made possible by each one having a direct route to truth, the consciousness of each being in a position to perceive mathematical truths directly, through the process of 'seeing'.
consistency requirements way
As you say, the way string theory requires all these extra dimensions and this comes from certain consistency requirements about how string should behave and so on.
dog strong zoos
What right do we have to claim, as some might, that human beings are the only inhabitants of our planet blessed with an actual ability to be "aware"? ... The impression of a "conscious presence" is indeed very strong with me when I look at a dog or a cat or, especially, when an ape or monkey at the zoo looks at me. I do not ask that they are "self-aware" in any strong sense (though I would guess that an element of self-awareness can be present). All I ask is that they sometimes simply feel !
revenge ambition vain
Ambition, idly vain; revenge and malice swell her train.
equations skip
Do not be afraid to skip equations (I do this frequently myself).
brain might action
It is hard to see how one could begin to develop a quantum-theoretical description of brain action when one might well have to regard the brain as "observing itself" all the time!