Sir Roger Penrose: Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe

What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy? In fact, acclaimed physicist and bestselling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas—string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology.

Arguing that string theory has veered away from physical reality by positing six extra hidden dimensions, Penrose cautions that the fashionable nature of a theory can cloud our judgment of its plausibility. In the case of quantum mechanics, its stunning success in explaining the atomic universe has led to an uncritical faith that it must also apply to reasonably massive objects, and Penrose responds by suggesting possible changes in quantum theory. Turning to cosmology, he argues that most of the current fantastical ideas about the origins of the universe cannot be true, but that an even wilder reality may lie behind them. Finally, Penrose describes how fashion, faith, and fantasy have ironically also shaped his own work, from twistor theory, a possible alternative to string theory that is beginning to acquire a fashionable status, to "conformal cyclic cosmology," an idea so fantastic that it could be called "conformal crazy cosmology."

The result is an important critique of some of the most significant developments in physics today from one of its most eminent figures.

Roger Penrose, one the world's foremost theoretical physicists, has won numerous prizes, including the Albert Einstein Medal, for his fundamental contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He is the bestselling author, with Stephen Hawking, of The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton). Penrose's other books include Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe and The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (both Vintage). He is the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at the University of Oxford and lives in Oxford, England.

[nemesis]

Sir Roger states his mathematical view of cosmology with endearing eloquence and confidence, without playing the celebrity card. A brilliant, generous, humble gentleman who clearly loves the challenges of independent thought and sharing knowledge.

[frankhoward]

I love this guy.

There may never be another Roger Penrose (although I hope that, in future, there will be many). A unique, fascinating, enjoyable, brilliant man of genius.

[squamish]

In our scientific age, Roger Penrose is one of those personalities who are like secular priests because he asks the biggest and most directly relevant questions about the universe and especially consciousness that many physicists shy away from, even other superstars like Hawking.

[coastwalker]

Awesome job folks, you have a very interesting collection of talks. I do hope you continue to post english language talks in future. Penrose is as thought provoking as ever.

[Fransamsterdam]

Very rare, Roger without transparant sheets. Extraordinary. :-)

[marekrudnicki]

Thank you for all your efforts. I appreciate lack of translation as well. Good luck to everybody in the new year 2017. By the way: to jest naprawdę jeden z najlepszych portali. "Portalów" to niepoprawnie po polsku, ale po Sylwestrze nie można mieć pretensji. Jedno błędne słowo nikomu nie zawadza.

[Dreadtower]

He belongs in that line of distinguished teachers of physics and mathematics, and much else, which includes Bertrand Russell and Richard Feynmann et al.

[mdomoradzki]

Piękna grecka, filozoficzna metoda odkrywania praw fizyki. oparta na rozumie
Doświadczenia z czasem też będą. Gratuluje.

[robertj.simpson]

One of the few secular physicists who I can trust because he refuses to accept contrarieties/contradictions. If we gloss over these we've given up on the project of science. (Several years ago Sean Carrol was wavering on the axiom of casualty - heck he'd have to give up on the axiom that assumes the truth of axiomatic truths, but then anything goes).

[walshamite]

When RP is using his familiar acetate OHP illustrations, he can look at the sheet on the projector in front of him and talk easily. How is it progress to have him wrestling with a not-especially-sensitive buttoned controller and craning his neck up, unable to see the writing at the top? The whole IT setup in that theatre is poorly implemented. The data should be in front of him, so he can point to parts of the image on the display he can easily see. To give a man in his 80s the setup we see here is a technically misconceived cybernetic nightmare.

[Fransamsterdam]

Good sound, good video, extraordinary content. Highly recommended!

[Fransamsterdam]

Q&A: How about consciousness?
I can tell you (... only this) about it and I should talk about physics I think from this point onwards.
I love it! (1:33:33....)

[jarneyfs]

I love how he says "basically..." hahahahhaa

[wojciechskorupski]

Dlaczego niema tłumaczenia tego wykładu, który jest tak ważny i istotny dla zrozumienia jednej z teorii wszechświata ?

[tarekazzam]

Morning Sir Penrose. Isn't there also a Kasner Space or a Kasner Model (I think mentioned in Misner Thorne Wheeler: Gravitation).

[robbie_]

I don't really understand Penrose's "functional freedom" argument against extra dimensions. I'm not clever enough. Anyway fascinating talk. Thanks for sharing.

[harleyxxfabco]

The man is clearly a genius, but I don't see how anyone can sit through his lectures.

[tarekazzam]

Interesting: if you a high Number of Dimensions of Space, the Number of Components of the Field - say Electric, Gravitational, - on that Space is irrelevant! Now I may combine this Information with some other Insight I found in one of Alexander Polyakov's Papers. But more about that later, Roger.

[deanlett]

I had what might be called a dream, where a child in the audience asked a controversial question about blood donation and whether or not to give if there was a chance even a drop of blood could give you some kind of disease. Listening to him I'm sue the doc would have straightened her ass out about probability factors and the likelihood of disease transmission.

[KipIngram]

1:29:14 - So, is this scale factor not relevant to entropy? A really loose way of stating the CCC idea is to say that once the last black hole evaporated, and there's nothing left in the universe but photons, the universe "forgets its big." After all, he's postulating that it just kind of "bangs again" from that point. So if we could step outside the universe at watch this, we'd see each successive universe be vastly larger than the previous ones. But only by some sort of "God like" measuring stick that we could somehow maintain across cycles. Within the universe, it seems like the fundamental building blocks are going to be "much larger" on successive cycles. But even though the Planck length for cycle N+1 would be huge compared to that of cycle N (measured by this "God ruler"), it still represents the same fundamental limiting quantity in the context of the new evolving universe. So it seems to me like a lot of stuff my have to get "reset, " and it's not unreasonable to me that one of them might be the "scale" of entropy calculations.