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The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius
The first biography of the dazzling and painful life of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose As a little boy, Roger Penrose and his father discovered a sundial in a clearing behind their home. In that machine made of light, shadow, and time, six-year-old Roger discovered a “world behind the world” of transcendently beautiful geometry, beginning a journey toward becoming one of the world’s most influential mathematicians, philosophers, and physicists.
In the years to come, Penrose earned a Nobel Prize, a knighthood, and dozens of other prestigious honors. He proved the limitations of general relativity, and he set a new agenda for theoretical physics. However, as Patchen Barss documents in The Impossible Man, success came at a price. Penrose’s longing for knowledge was matched only by his inability to understand those around him, and he struggled to connect with friends, family, and especially the women in his life. His final years have been spent alone with his research, intentionally cut off from the people who loved him.
Erudite and deeply moving, The Impossible Man intimately depicts the relationship between Penrose the scientist and Roger the human being. It reveals the tragic cost—to himself and those closest to him—of Roger Penrose’s extraordinary life.
In the years to come, Penrose earned a Nobel Prize, a knighthood, and dozens of other prestigious honors. He proved the limitations of general relativity, and he set a new agenda for theoretical physics. However, as Patchen Barss documents in The Impossible Man, success came at a price. Penrose’s longing for knowledge was matched only by his inability to understand those around him, and he struggled to connect with friends, family, and especially the women in his life. His final years have been spent alone with his research, intentionally cut off from the people who loved him.
Erudite and deeply moving, The Impossible Man intimately depicts the relationship between Penrose the scientist and Roger the human being. It reveals the tragic cost—to himself and those closest to him—of Roger Penrose’s extraordinary life.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published November 12, 2024
124 people are currently reading
1007 people want to read
About the author
Patchen Barss
7 books13 followersPatchen Barss is a Toronto-based science journalist who has contributed to the BBC,
Nautilus
magazine,
Scientific American
, and the Discovery Channel (Canada), as well as to many science and natural history museums. His previous books include
The Erotic Engine: How Pornography Has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google,
and
Flow Spin Grow: Looking for Patterns in Nature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
November 24, 2024
too short, too much empty space, too little detail ( The Road to Reality is given a single paragraph), too many unexplained references (who is "Vahe Gurzadyan"? he is mentioned once at the bottom of page 276 as an "alliance" and never mentioned otherwise), too much dazed summary of complex topics, very little science, unnecessary little progressive tics ("fat-phobic"?), overall an uninteresting and sad book. what a waste.
July 24, 2025
The Great Geometer
If I were asked to name the greatest physicists of the second half of the twentieth century, I would probably choose three: Richard Feynman, Steven Weinberg, and Roger Penrose. (I am a neuroscientist and a mathematician with a long interest in physics. I'm not the best person to choose great physicists, but I'm not the worst.) Thus when my local Theoretical Physics Institute (every town should have one!), the Perimeter Institute, announced a public presentation by Patchen Barss, a science journalist who has written this biography of Penrose, I immediately snagged a ticket.
Barss wounded my confidence by emitting that cliché of the science popularizer: that you make science interesting by telling the "human story." Oh, please! I don't read a biography of Penrose for the sake of the human story. Why do science popularizers find it so hard to believe that there exist humans who are really genuinely interested in science? I will grant that such people are a minority of the population at large, but are they a minority of those who are likely to read a biography of Roger Penrose? Not obvious, in my opinion.
It's not that I'm uninterested in human stories, but novelists have that literary ground covered. If you're about to complain that novels are fiction, allow me to point out that theoretical physics is no more real. Most theoretical physics is done by working with simplified fictional models of reality. So, Penrose has a human story, it's told in rather too much detail here, and it is honestly just not all that interesting. Penrose was self-centered and selfish in a way that many men are.
If you didn't understand Penrose's work as a physicist, you would have a hard time learning it here. I, however, have long been interested in Penrose and have read several of his books, so I was able to fill in from my own knowledge.
Penrose is a brilliant geometer. Barss tells a story about this. One night Penrose gathered with a bunch of students at one of the student's homes for a movie night -- this was a regular thing. That night they had decided to share ice cream. Someone brought boxes of ice cream. They found that the student didn't have freezer space for all the ice cream. It was clearly impossible to get all that ice cream into that tiny freezer. Then this happened:
Now, Einstein's theory of general relativity is all about geometry. Thus Penrose was able to figure out such puzzles as how to pack tiles together to cover a plane with pentagons, but also to prove that black holes must form when a big star collapses. It was a three-page paper published in 1964, and in 2020 it won him a Nobel Prize. (Interestingly Penrose proved this just after Belinsky, Khalatnikov, and Lifshitz proved that it was almost impossible for a black hole to form. Lifshitz found the error in his proof and published it soon after.)
Towards the end of his life Penrose fell into a trap that catches many of the most prominent scientists. He was so charismatic and so respected that there was no longer anyone who could tell him when he had gone off the rails. He became certain that he KNEW the answers to some questions, and that is death for a scientist. The first such step was his book The Emperor's New Mind, in which he proposed that consciousness is an effect of quantum mechanics.
The Emperor's New Mind was the first book of Penrose's that I read. I was by nature strongly resistant to his view that machine consciousness is impossible -- it smacks of vitalism, which I abhor. But I was impressed by the first half of the book. Penrose convinced me of things that I didn't think I could be convinced of. And then he began to discuss neuroscience, and the book fell off a cliff. I am a neuroscientist, so I am qualified to have opinions on the subject, and it was obvious that Penrose really fundamentally didn't understand certain things about how brains work. It's a great book. It's wrong, but it's brilliantly wrong. Daniel Dennett, who reviewed it, called it
The Impossible Man is, in my opinion, an adequate but not superb biography of Roger Penrose. It is also, by virtue of being the only one, the best biography of Penrose. I wish I had not had to slog through the many, many pages about Penrose's personal relationships, but I am not sorry I read it. But if you want to understand Roger Penrose, you should read his books in addition to this biography.
Blog review.
If I were asked to name the greatest physicists of the second half of the twentieth century, I would probably choose three: Richard Feynman, Steven Weinberg, and Roger Penrose. (I am a neuroscientist and a mathematician with a long interest in physics. I'm not the best person to choose great physicists, but I'm not the worst.) Thus when my local Theoretical Physics Institute (every town should have one!), the Perimeter Institute, announced a public presentation by Patchen Barss, a science journalist who has written this biography of Penrose, I immediately snagged a ticket.
Barss wounded my confidence by emitting that cliché of the science popularizer: that you make science interesting by telling the "human story." Oh, please! I don't read a biography of Penrose for the sake of the human story. Why do science popularizers find it so hard to believe that there exist humans who are really genuinely interested in science? I will grant that such people are a minority of the population at large, but are they a minority of those who are likely to read a biography of Roger Penrose? Not obvious, in my opinion.
It's not that I'm uninterested in human stories, but novelists have that literary ground covered. If you're about to complain that novels are fiction, allow me to point out that theoretical physics is no more real. Most theoretical physics is done by working with simplified fictional models of reality. So, Penrose has a human story, it's told in rather too much detail here, and it is honestly just not all that interesting. Penrose was self-centered and selfish in a way that many men are.
If you didn't understand Penrose's work as a physicist, you would have a hard time learning it here. I, however, have long been interested in Penrose and have read several of his books, so I was able to fill in from my own knowledge.
Penrose is a brilliant geometer. Barss tells a story about this. One night Penrose gathered with a bunch of students at one of the student's homes for a movie night -- this was a regular thing. That night they had decided to share ice cream. Someone brought boxes of ice cream. They found that the student didn't have freezer space for all the ice cream. It was clearly impossible to get all that ice cream into that tiny freezer. Then this happened:
The crowd looked on as [Penrose] shifted items around the freezer and fridge. It dawned on David exactly what they were witnessing. “Over about fifteen seconds, we went from one state of mind to another. First, we were sure that he couldn’t possibly fit it all in there because we couldn’t. Then it looked as though he was making headway. And then we had a funny moment when we looked at each other and realized we had just asked the world’s leading expert on packing things to pack the ice cream into my freezer. And sure enough, he managed it. It was an impossible task, but he managed it.”So, the Impossible Man.
Now, Einstein's theory of general relativity is all about geometry. Thus Penrose was able to figure out such puzzles as how to pack tiles together to cover a plane with pentagons, but also to prove that black holes must form when a big star collapses. It was a three-page paper published in 1964, and in 2020 it won him a Nobel Prize. (Interestingly Penrose proved this just after Belinsky, Khalatnikov, and Lifshitz proved that it was almost impossible for a black hole to form. Lifshitz found the error in his proof and published it soon after.)
Towards the end of his life Penrose fell into a trap that catches many of the most prominent scientists. He was so charismatic and so respected that there was no longer anyone who could tell him when he had gone off the rails. He became certain that he KNEW the answers to some questions, and that is death for a scientist. The first such step was his book The Emperor's New Mind, in which he proposed that consciousness is an effect of quantum mechanics.
The Emperor's New Mind was the first book of Penrose's that I read. I was by nature strongly resistant to his view that machine consciousness is impossible -- it smacks of vitalism, which I abhor. But I was impressed by the first half of the book. Penrose convinced me of things that I didn't think I could be convinced of. And then he began to discuss neuroscience, and the book fell off a cliff. I am a neuroscientist, so I am qualified to have opinions on the subject, and it was obvious that Penrose really fundamentally didn't understand certain things about how brains work. It's a great book. It's wrong, but it's brilliantly wrong. Daniel Dennett, who reviewed it, called it
the ultimate academic shaggy dog story, a tale whose fascinating digressions outweigh the punch line by a large factor.and also said,
Penrose is wrong in a pretty interesting and clear way. I mean this not in a backhanded way at all. If you can make a really clear and tantalizing mistake, that’s very useful. Many of the advances of science have come from the correcting of other people’s mistakesPenrose also may have gone off the rails as a physicist. His Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe is another brilliant and, I suspect, brilliantly wrong, book.
The Impossible Man is, in my opinion, an adequate but not superb biography of Roger Penrose. It is also, by virtue of being the only one, the best biography of Penrose. I wish I had not had to slog through the many, many pages about Penrose's personal relationships, but I am not sorry I read it. But if you want to understand Roger Penrose, you should read his books in addition to this biography.
Blog review.
July 12, 2024
(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley).
I enjoyed this book about Rodger Penrose. I didn't know a great deal about him but was aware of some of his work. I have never made it past the first few pages of any of Penrose's own books which are notoriously hard to read, so was curious to find out more about him.
This biography leans towards Penrose the man, rather than his work. The author had extensive help from his subject and had access to a lot of materials, including letters and papers.
Penrose's childhood sounds amazing. It seems his genius was more visual rather than mathematical. He was lucky to have a Leopold Mozart-type father who was the perfect mentor to Penrose's budding genius. There seems to be no doubt that the relationship between the two led to so much that Penrose worked on and solving puzzles and games with his family naturally led to his early work on relativity.
The other big theme of the book is Penrose's need for a female "muse" and the resulting very one-sided relationships he had with women. He was unable to cope with his first wife Joan's depression, and much of the book explores his relationship with Judith, including extensive quotes from letters. Penrose used her as an unwilling muse and eventually drove her away. Other women were to fill this need in him in his subsequent relationships.
Penrose is an enormous subject, and the book concentrates more on these two areas: where his ideas came from, and the need for a muse. The Judith letters encapsulate both themes and that is why they are such a central part of the book. It would be good to know more, and doubtless more books about Penrose will follow, perhaps ones that look at his work in more detail.
I enjoyed this book about Rodger Penrose. I didn't know a great deal about him but was aware of some of his work. I have never made it past the first few pages of any of Penrose's own books which are notoriously hard to read, so was curious to find out more about him.
This biography leans towards Penrose the man, rather than his work. The author had extensive help from his subject and had access to a lot of materials, including letters and papers.
Penrose's childhood sounds amazing. It seems his genius was more visual rather than mathematical. He was lucky to have a Leopold Mozart-type father who was the perfect mentor to Penrose's budding genius. There seems to be no doubt that the relationship between the two led to so much that Penrose worked on and solving puzzles and games with his family naturally led to his early work on relativity.
The other big theme of the book is Penrose's need for a female "muse" and the resulting very one-sided relationships he had with women. He was unable to cope with his first wife Joan's depression, and much of the book explores his relationship with Judith, including extensive quotes from letters. Penrose used her as an unwilling muse and eventually drove her away. Other women were to fill this need in him in his subsequent relationships.
Penrose is an enormous subject, and the book concentrates more on these two areas: where his ideas came from, and the need for a muse. The Judith letters encapsulate both themes and that is why they are such a central part of the book. It would be good to know more, and doubtless more books about Penrose will follow, perhaps ones that look at his work in more detail.
January 6, 2025
Toilet paper. What a waste. So far as I can tell, the author had many years worth of opportunities to conduct interviews with one of the most learned men of science to ever live, and all that interested him was his father's lack of feminist ideals and Penrose's difficulties with women. Who cares? I wanted to understand Penrose's scientific and philosophical roots, but I learned more about that in brief snippets, few and far between, in Road to Reality than I did in this *biography.*
There's a trend in science journalism now, nitwits, or if we're lucky, halfwits, get access to the world's greatest minds and they think their target audience is interested in the same drivel that they're interested in; namely personal gossip and sex.
What else could I have expected from the author of "The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google."
It should be the responsibility of universities which employ distinguished scientists to supply them with competent biographers educated in science, mathematics, and philosophy. A project of this kind could have inspired a new generation of scientists and galvanized the public to celebrate, at least for some time, an unmatched scholar - considering his advanced age, I doubt very much if a similar venture could be undertaken, so this will have to stand as the definitive biography of this great man.
There's a trend in science journalism now, nitwits, or if we're lucky, halfwits, get access to the world's greatest minds and they think their target audience is interested in the same drivel that they're interested in; namely personal gossip and sex.
What else could I have expected from the author of "The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google."
It should be the responsibility of universities which employ distinguished scientists to supply them with competent biographers educated in science, mathematics, and philosophy. A project of this kind could have inspired a new generation of scientists and galvanized the public to celebrate, at least for some time, an unmatched scholar - considering his advanced age, I doubt very much if a similar venture could be undertaken, so this will have to stand as the definitive biography of this great man.
September 22, 2025
A Canadian based science journalist, Patchen Barss, has written about science, technology and culture for almost 20 years. His biography of Roger Penrose took him six years to complete. He crafted the biography around a layered narrative: one that fuses early childhood wonder, foundational scientific breakthroughs, and the emotional weight of a lifetime devoted to infinite pursuit. It’s not merely a record of achievements; it’s an invitation to inhabit the thought patterns of a man who oscillates between delight, genius, and regret.
The book offers an accessible and compelling narrative of how Penrose developed the singularity theorem—demonstrating that general relativity inevitably leads to infinite curvature—and how this transformed theoretical physics and underpinned modern understandings of black holes.
The biography explores how dedication to intellectual work sometimes comes at the expense of personal connection and emotional well-being. Barss doesn’t shy away from showing how Penrose prioritized physics over family, acknowledging that he might have been just as great and more human if he made different choices. Rather than idolising Penrose, Barss strips away myth to reveal the man behind the mathematics—his vulnerabilities, contradictions, and the emotional scaffolding behind scientific breakthroughs.
The biography begins with Roger Penrose's discovery of a sundial as a six-year-old, an early spark that launched his lifelong fascination with geometry and the hidden structures of reality. Barss chronicles seminal breakthroughs: the 1965 singularity theorem that demonstrated the inherent incompleteness of general relativity when facing infinite densities (like black holes), and the development of twistor theory, his visual framework for blending general relativity with quantum mechanics. Penrose’s scientific approach is deeply rooted in intuition and visual imagination—a preference for geometry over formal symbols, as shown in his popular creations like the Penrose triangle and staircase.
The book is highly recommended for all those interested in Penrose's work. Personally, I am not sure I wanted to know so much about his personal life, as we must recognise that in most cases the achievements of this rarefied group of people come at enormous price to their personal life and those around them.
The book offers an accessible and compelling narrative of how Penrose developed the singularity theorem—demonstrating that general relativity inevitably leads to infinite curvature—and how this transformed theoretical physics and underpinned modern understandings of black holes.
The biography explores how dedication to intellectual work sometimes comes at the expense of personal connection and emotional well-being. Barss doesn’t shy away from showing how Penrose prioritized physics over family, acknowledging that he might have been just as great and more human if he made different choices. Rather than idolising Penrose, Barss strips away myth to reveal the man behind the mathematics—his vulnerabilities, contradictions, and the emotional scaffolding behind scientific breakthroughs.
The biography begins with Roger Penrose's discovery of a sundial as a six-year-old, an early spark that launched his lifelong fascination with geometry and the hidden structures of reality. Barss chronicles seminal breakthroughs: the 1965 singularity theorem that demonstrated the inherent incompleteness of general relativity when facing infinite densities (like black holes), and the development of twistor theory, his visual framework for blending general relativity with quantum mechanics. Penrose’s scientific approach is deeply rooted in intuition and visual imagination—a preference for geometry over formal symbols, as shown in his popular creations like the Penrose triangle and staircase.
The book is highly recommended for all those interested in Penrose's work. Personally, I am not sure I wanted to know so much about his personal life, as we must recognise that in most cases the achievements of this rarefied group of people come at enormous price to their personal life and those around them.
November 19, 2024
An excellent biography and an excellent exploration of how we think about geniuses. And especially about how at least one genius thought about his own genius.
January 25, 2025
It feels like I read a lot of nothing. The interesting details about Roger and his life are sparse amongst the very flowery filler. There are also some spelling mistakes in the later chapters, and some dubious, confusing definition of mathematical concepts. For example:
'Tensors are algebraic objects that describe the properties of physical objects in simple numerical or graphical terms. Tensors use vector space to quantify relationships between physical phenomena'.
February 6, 2025
A warts and all biography of the great (Nobel prize winning) mathematical physicist Roger Penrose. For some physicists, Roger is second only to Albert Einstein, while for others he is man who got too involved in crackpot pseudoscience in areas outside of his expertise. Either way, he is a very significant figure.
The warts in his life are his relationships with women. Relationships that could be (to varying degrees) adulterous, exploitative, and abusive. Like many academics around the world, he likes them young. I have argued with lecturers until I am blue in the face that such relationships are exploitative due to the power aspect and age differences, but all I ever get back is “They’re adults. They can decide for themselves.”. Anyone who (like me) has daughters might take a different view. Penrose is not the worst by any means. Very far from it (I know some really creepy lecturers…), but it is his refusal to take responsibility for anything he has done in his personal life that rankles with the author and with me. According to Roger, everything that goes well in his professional life is down to him, but everything that happens in his private life is random and/or shaped by the universe. Funny that…
I definitely enjoyed most the part of the book that deals with Roger’s childhood. He grew up in an oppressive intellectual hothouse due to his cold, demanding and overbearing father (who was so jealous of his genius wife, he made sure she could never interact with the world lest she outshine him). Roger was the third cleverest out of three clever boys (the sister didn’t count as far as the father was concerned, though the brothers loved her very much and cared for her from the day she was born). Roger’s ranking in the household wasn’t a developmental issue. Even in adulthood, Oliver and Jonathan (who was ten-times British chess champion) were smarter than Roger.
I met Roger once (I gave him a lift in Oxford in my car) and found him to kind, generous and affable. I also played chess against Jonathan a couple of times, and remained in awe of him. Perhaps the book doesn’t quite bring out how nice Roger is, but it’s a hard job to write a biography of someone who has done so much. Inevitably, some things resonate more with certain readers than others so any unevenness can be down to how it is read, as much as how it is written. In the end, the author can only play the cards he or she is dealt. Roger is not a larger than life character like a Von Neumann or Feynman, or as other worldly as mathematician Kurt Godel. Nor did he grow up in the chaos of pre-war mainland Europe, like the ‘Martians’ (a group of genius Jewish scientists from pre-war Hungary who emigrated to the USA). There is nothing the author can do about that. But Roger and his family did move around a lot, and did have a lot of interesting adventures along the way, so I never found the story dull.
The book does a reasonable job of explaining Roger’s theories and their impact on the world. I am not sure anyone else could have done better. It’s a tricky issue to write a popular science biography and not baffle the causal reader with complexity or leave the scientist reader dissatisfied. Writing about people who developed the first nuclear bombs is always going to be more dramatic than writing about a fanatical geometer who did so much with 2d tiling while developing theories of black holes and challenging quantum theory and string theory. For Roger is very much an iconoclast. While all other physicists are off following the latest fashion in science (perhaps cynically, to increase their chances of getting funded), Roger withholds judgement while he thinks about things (and watches how said theories evolve). I think it is his sticking to fundamental principles, his integrity, and his refusal to be swayed by trends in physics (including major theories that feel wrong intuitively) that makes Roger so important. By being this way, he has forced other physicists to do better at designing, explaining and justifying their theories. Roger can never be accused of seeking or taking an easy dollar, unlike one famous physicist who doesn’t come off so well in the book…
Recommended if you like science and you know who Roger is. But not a big enough story to carry you through if you are not.
The warts in his life are his relationships with women. Relationships that could be (to varying degrees) adulterous, exploitative, and abusive. Like many academics around the world, he likes them young. I have argued with lecturers until I am blue in the face that such relationships are exploitative due to the power aspect and age differences, but all I ever get back is “They’re adults. They can decide for themselves.”. Anyone who (like me) has daughters might take a different view. Penrose is not the worst by any means. Very far from it (I know some really creepy lecturers…), but it is his refusal to take responsibility for anything he has done in his personal life that rankles with the author and with me. According to Roger, everything that goes well in his professional life is down to him, but everything that happens in his private life is random and/or shaped by the universe. Funny that…
I definitely enjoyed most the part of the book that deals with Roger’s childhood. He grew up in an oppressive intellectual hothouse due to his cold, demanding and overbearing father (who was so jealous of his genius wife, he made sure she could never interact with the world lest she outshine him). Roger was the third cleverest out of three clever boys (the sister didn’t count as far as the father was concerned, though the brothers loved her very much and cared for her from the day she was born). Roger’s ranking in the household wasn’t a developmental issue. Even in adulthood, Oliver and Jonathan (who was ten-times British chess champion) were smarter than Roger.
I met Roger once (I gave him a lift in Oxford in my car) and found him to kind, generous and affable. I also played chess against Jonathan a couple of times, and remained in awe of him. Perhaps the book doesn’t quite bring out how nice Roger is, but it’s a hard job to write a biography of someone who has done so much. Inevitably, some things resonate more with certain readers than others so any unevenness can be down to how it is read, as much as how it is written. In the end, the author can only play the cards he or she is dealt. Roger is not a larger than life character like a Von Neumann or Feynman, or as other worldly as mathematician Kurt Godel. Nor did he grow up in the chaos of pre-war mainland Europe, like the ‘Martians’ (a group of genius Jewish scientists from pre-war Hungary who emigrated to the USA). There is nothing the author can do about that. But Roger and his family did move around a lot, and did have a lot of interesting adventures along the way, so I never found the story dull.
The book does a reasonable job of explaining Roger’s theories and their impact on the world. I am not sure anyone else could have done better. It’s a tricky issue to write a popular science biography and not baffle the causal reader with complexity or leave the scientist reader dissatisfied. Writing about people who developed the first nuclear bombs is always going to be more dramatic than writing about a fanatical geometer who did so much with 2d tiling while developing theories of black holes and challenging quantum theory and string theory. For Roger is very much an iconoclast. While all other physicists are off following the latest fashion in science (perhaps cynically, to increase their chances of getting funded), Roger withholds judgement while he thinks about things (and watches how said theories evolve). I think it is his sticking to fundamental principles, his integrity, and his refusal to be swayed by trends in physics (including major theories that feel wrong intuitively) that makes Roger so important. By being this way, he has forced other physicists to do better at designing, explaining and justifying their theories. Roger can never be accused of seeking or taking an easy dollar, unlike one famous physicist who doesn’t come off so well in the book…
Recommended if you like science and you know who Roger is. But not a big enough story to carry you through if you are not.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 3, 2025
I am not much of a physics aficionado; I am more likely one of the people Roger Penrose would say lacked understanding and the ability to see the world as physics scholars do. But I am fascinated by the process with which one becomes a genius.
I would consider this a cautionary tale. While his curiosity and unique way of visualizing the world provided scientific advances, I loved one line of out this book; Roger Penrose explored life. Those in his orbit had an even greater view of the world, they created it. They understood principles of physics would continue to be observed, studied. It’s not unique to humans. But our relationships are. Emotional intelligence which it seems Penrose lacked, carries its own value. He was never able to capitalize. If it wasn’t important to him, it wasn’t important. While he explored, his ability to create and to imagine diminished alongside his personal relationships.
It seems it was one correlation he never managed to visualize.
It’s important tale in 2025, where we post, tweet, and share more than we listen.
I would consider this a cautionary tale. While his curiosity and unique way of visualizing the world provided scientific advances, I loved one line of out this book; Roger Penrose explored life. Those in his orbit had an even greater view of the world, they created it. They understood principles of physics would continue to be observed, studied. It’s not unique to humans. But our relationships are. Emotional intelligence which it seems Penrose lacked, carries its own value. He was never able to capitalize. If it wasn’t important to him, it wasn’t important. While he explored, his ability to create and to imagine diminished alongside his personal relationships.
It seems it was one correlation he never managed to visualize.
It’s important tale in 2025, where we post, tweet, and share more than we listen.
December 13, 2024
The second chapter of this clearly written and certainly accessible biography is called "Unexpected Simplicity". Chapter 1 is called "The Jungle". Though both chapters recount stories from Roger Penrose's youth, the juxtaposition of these two chapter titles give us a glimpse of the key the author uses to unlock his subject's habits of mind: he has always sought the naked Simplicity beneath the Jungle of sense impressions. Sadly, though, this biography seems marked by the same habit. Anecdotes from Penrose's life become synecdoches for strides forward in his thinking, so much so that the account itself often veers towards over-simplification. Barss appears to have had enviable access to his subject, and to have gleaned some very personal details from him. If the book is overweighted towards the life, and less systematic towards the work (which one could argue is the case), I suspect that this is the reason why.
November 22, 2024
I devoured this book. The writing is beautiful and evocative and it does a great job of explaining complex science concepts. I appreciated the complete portrait of this genius. The honest assessment of his contributions and his flaws, for me, made for a credible, enjoyable read. I would give this book to anyone who loves science or biography.
April 17, 2025
The film director Robert Altman once explained to his kids that, although they were important to him, his work was more so. The same was true for Penrose's kids, just that they had to work it out for themselves, rather than being told. Towards the end of the book, the author asks Penrose whether he had any unfinished business with his sons, and he replies “I feel my life is busy enough and if I get involved with them, it just distracts from other things”.
It's said that Einstein’s first marriage produced special relativity and the second one produced general relativity. Penrose needed a “muse”: a woman in whom he was romantically interested and with whom he could talk through his work, even if they didn't understand it.
The author makes the most of his access to his subject and his letters, depicting Penrose's single-mindedness and cruelty. There are also some strange gaps. For most researchers, their PhD is a formative process, in particular their interactions with peers and their PhD supervisor (advisor). Penrose's supervisor was J.A. Todd, although you wouldn't know that from this book, where he is mentioned as ‘’one of Roger's thesis reviewers”.
Penrose tiles are polygons which cover 2D space, but without repeating as, for example, squares and hexagons do. A key role in the development of Penrose tiles was a Kepler manuscript in his family home. Family history is another gap in the book. How is it that the Penroses had 17th century scientific manuscripts lying around like other families have old motoring atlases?
Penrose crosses paths with Stephen Hawking several times. Penrose's collaborative style seems to have been open and informal. One of his students said that, in contrast, Hawking's group “would be going down the halls practically clicking their heels and saluting”.
I can understand Barss’ negativity about Penrose's book The Emperor's New Mind, but not about The Road to Reality. He says he can't imagine an audience for it. But why would graduates of mathematics and the exact sciences not welcome a single-volume recap of all physical laws, by someone with a renowned ability to explain concepts graphically? OK, it may not be popular science, but is it so niche?
I was looking forward to this book and, despite its frustrating gaps, it kept my interest as I read it in the course of a weekend.
It's said that Einstein’s first marriage produced special relativity and the second one produced general relativity. Penrose needed a “muse”: a woman in whom he was romantically interested and with whom he could talk through his work, even if they didn't understand it.
The author makes the most of his access to his subject and his letters, depicting Penrose's single-mindedness and cruelty. There are also some strange gaps. For most researchers, their PhD is a formative process, in particular their interactions with peers and their PhD supervisor (advisor). Penrose's supervisor was J.A. Todd, although you wouldn't know that from this book, where he is mentioned as ‘’one of Roger's thesis reviewers”.
Penrose tiles are polygons which cover 2D space, but without repeating as, for example, squares and hexagons do. A key role in the development of Penrose tiles was a Kepler manuscript in his family home. Family history is another gap in the book. How is it that the Penroses had 17th century scientific manuscripts lying around like other families have old motoring atlases?
Penrose crosses paths with Stephen Hawking several times. Penrose's collaborative style seems to have been open and informal. One of his students said that, in contrast, Hawking's group “would be going down the halls practically clicking their heels and saluting”.
I can understand Barss’ negativity about Penrose's book The Emperor's New Mind, but not about The Road to Reality. He says he can't imagine an audience for it. But why would graduates of mathematics and the exact sciences not welcome a single-volume recap of all physical laws, by someone with a renowned ability to explain concepts graphically? OK, it may not be popular science, but is it so niche?
I was looking forward to this book and, despite its frustrating gaps, it kept my interest as I read it in the course of a weekend.
November 13, 2025
Patchen Barss gives us an intimate biography of Roger Penrose, the brilliant mathematician and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics at 89 for proving that black holes inevitably form from dying stars.
But this book isn't really about genius - it's about the human cost of genius.
Spoiler:
Penrose won his Nobel prize in 2020, received it at the Swedish ambassador's residence in his 80s, stuffed it in a cupboard with his other medals, and went straight back to work.
That's the book in a nutshell - a man so utterly consumed by the pursuit of transcendent mathematical beauty that he sacrificed his marriage, estranged his children, and alienated the scientific community.
Barss masterfully weaves together childhood trauma (emotionally distant parents), brilliant mathematical breakthroughs (pentagons don't tile, but his father showed him why), and devastating personal choices (an affair with a family friend that destabilized everyone).
You'll be mesmerized by how Penrose's mind works—geometric, uncompromising, almost alien in its purity—but heartbroken by how that same mind left wreckage in its wake.
A deeply human biography of an impossible man who proved you can change physics but still can't change yourself.
Gripping, beautifully written, and uncomfortably honest about genius having a price.
But this book isn't really about genius - it's about the human cost of genius.
Spoiler:
Penrose won his Nobel prize in 2020, received it at the Swedish ambassador's residence in his 80s, stuffed it in a cupboard with his other medals, and went straight back to work.
That's the book in a nutshell - a man so utterly consumed by the pursuit of transcendent mathematical beauty that he sacrificed his marriage, estranged his children, and alienated the scientific community.
Barss masterfully weaves together childhood trauma (emotionally distant parents), brilliant mathematical breakthroughs (pentagons don't tile, but his father showed him why), and devastating personal choices (an affair with a family friend that destabilized everyone).
You'll be mesmerized by how Penrose's mind works—geometric, uncompromising, almost alien in its purity—but heartbroken by how that same mind left wreckage in its wake.
A deeply human biography of an impossible man who proved you can change physics but still can't change yourself.
Gripping, beautifully written, and uncomfortably honest about genius having a price.
May 24, 2025
Very good biography of an extraordinary mathematician/physicist
Overall, a broad look at Roger Penrose’s career and life. Less technical but more about Penrose’s personal motivations and the cost to those around him of his single minded concentration on his puzzles, both in cosmology and geometry. I did feel that the pace of the book focused quite a bit on his early life, and accelerated as Penrose aged. But there the author was attempting to show how Penrose’s parents molded him into the rather distant person he became. While the ability to focus relentlessly on problems was key to his productivity, the distancing damaged his ability to understand the people around him. His attempts at establishing mutually satisfying relationships with the women in his life fail, and leave him alone at the end of this book.
There is no doubt that he was a singular insightful scientist, with many unique and highly respected contributions. His Nobel Prize work on singularities and gravity remains a monument to his remarkable abilities. But he also chased ideas (e.g., quantum effects in cell microtubules role in consciousness) that are clearly not serious concepts for several reasons. It will be interesting to see in the future what his overall legacy will be.
Overall, a broad look at Roger Penrose’s career and life. Less technical but more about Penrose’s personal motivations and the cost to those around him of his single minded concentration on his puzzles, both in cosmology and geometry. I did feel that the pace of the book focused quite a bit on his early life, and accelerated as Penrose aged. But there the author was attempting to show how Penrose’s parents molded him into the rather distant person he became. While the ability to focus relentlessly on problems was key to his productivity, the distancing damaged his ability to understand the people around him. His attempts at establishing mutually satisfying relationships with the women in his life fail, and leave him alone at the end of this book.
There is no doubt that he was a singular insightful scientist, with many unique and highly respected contributions. His Nobel Prize work on singularities and gravity remains a monument to his remarkable abilities. But he also chased ideas (e.g., quantum effects in cell microtubules role in consciousness) that are clearly not serious concepts for several reasons. It will be interesting to see in the future what his overall legacy will be.
July 29, 2025
I didn’t know much about Roger Penrose when I picked up this book. But I was interested in the “cost of genius” aspect highlighted in the title. Since I don’t have much interest in Penrose’s field of expertise (it goes over my head) perhaps it wasn’t my wisest book selection. Especially since the “cost of genius” was not surprising, an inability to connect with other people. However, there are lot of dysfunctional families out there with similar problems so unless you have an interest in Penrose himself or theoretical physics, you probably won’t get much out of this book.
February 4, 2025
A really well-written book on a devilishly complicated guy. Genius has its many, many costs.
April 9, 2025
I loved the focus on the Gaugin theme.
April 10, 2025
This book furnishes a riveting dialogue between the humanness and superhumanness of Roger Penrose, and between biographical minutiae and theoretical physics. I felt equally invested in Penrose as an individual (he has, perhaps unsurprisingly, significant moral shortcomings) and in his body of work. The Impossible Man reignited my old love of theoretical physics as a scientific discipline, but even those who are impartial to the subject will find themselves engaged in the story of Penrose the person.
June 18, 2025
Too much Judith, not enough twistors. However, I added one more star after reading this sentence towards the end of the book: "The proof that there isn't a god is that if there were a god, there are many points in my life when he would whispered in my ear: Wait for Judith."
I think I understand why the author spend so much time on her: at the request of Roger.
I think I understand why the author spend so much time on her: at the request of Roger.
February 4, 2025
Astonishing book I can't believe we have. I hope it's helped Sir Penrose to let things off his chest toward the end of his life - a life, however stellar, ending in isolation and solitude - which, as the text reveals, is inadvertently self-imposed.
The author is leading us through the painful process of damaging a child and planting the seeds of narcissism, of autism, of psychopathology in general. I'm only halfway through the book, and apparently more intimate revelations are yet to come, but what's relayed is informative enough, and done with psychological subtlety, yet with clarity. It is tragic to think that an overbearing and abusive father, and the violent patriarchal society in general, have psychologically crippled perhaps the most brilliant boy in history: a true visionary, a magician; someone who saw through the fabric of the universe and visualised it. I want to dig his father from the grave and punch him. He even tried to prevent Roger from becoming a mathematician, which he considered unworthy and contemptible!
Of course, this isn't pulp fiction like some high-hats complain, and neither is it purely scientific literature, although it gives the reader a clear and comprehensive idea about Roger's scientific pursuits and feats; moreover, doing it poetically. The average reader might even struggle to comprehend the complex ideas; only the "socially awkward mathematicians", as Roger's father put it, might complain there isn't enough science: indeed, there is mainly science, which Roger pursued "with his life".
This is a book about the man, and I'm grateful Sir Roger has decided to be so candid about his life. He could have chosen to remain "a legend", given that "...the feeling remains with me that I have missed out on something. This feeling does not really disturb me provided I can maintain the impression that my work is really worthwhile." It is endearing to think that this Master of the Universe still has regrets over some missed romantic life. We should not infantilise, however; what he's missing is the connection with women, from which the sensitive and joyful boy was severed very early on ("You're not to communicate with girls your age!"); as impressionable as he is, this left an indelible mark on his psyche, as did the all-too-real sense of abandonment, which would lead him to estrange his own children...
P.S. Reading further into the book, it is difficult to retain compassion for Penrose.
It gets ever more bizarre, revealing the full picture of a textbook cerebral narcissist.
I see that most reviewers dismiss the psychological aspect, laid out in detailed length, as superfluous; on the contrary, I think the value of this book is in demonstrating the juxtaposition and co-existence of genius and being an emotional invalid. It's probably astonishing that one could solve the secrets of the universe and live in such arrogant delusion about other people.
One may wonder if he could have really solved the mystery of the universe, had he not suffered a personality disorder. Damn you, Lionel Penrose.
___
I'm finishing the book. And I'm finished with Penrose.
Ended up typing to the author:
"I find a contradiction in your epilogue: on the one hand, you suggest that he'd have been more creative, had he not a personality disorder (which becomes all too evident from the generously shared data); then you state as the aim of the book investigating how science happened, implying that psychopathology (e.g. manifested in the painfully dysfunctional Judith dialogues) somehow still contributed to the creative ideas.
Most of all I'm puzzled by your continued respect and fondness for Penrose, after he was willing to knowingly accept money from a convicted sex offender/ paedophile."
To Ivette Fuentes:
"Hi, I read the Roger Penrose biography which I found shocking yet unsurprising. I commend your firm attitude; in fact, were it not for you, he'd have accepted money from Jeffrey Epstein, knowing he had been a sex offender/paedophile. What strikes me is that you continue your friendship with him afterwards. This is a man who evidently beat his wife, neglected and eventually cut off his children, nearly sexually assaulted a woman, and demanded every woman be his "muse". Someone who didn't care where his source of fame and/or money came from. His wife left him after he told her he didn't care if Joe Rogan was a misogynist, racist, etc., as long as he gave Roger a platform. I just hope you shake yourself from the "magic" you decribe about him (narcissists are "magical" for a reason) and see him for exactly who he is."
I have a response from Ivette Fuentes:
"I am friends with Roger because that book is full of lies. The author twisted things. Clearly with an agenda to attack Roger. I wonder why.
I will not waste my time with this tabloid-like rubbish book."
Part of my reply is: "I would not have imagined the book to be 'all lies', since the author claims to have spent five years talking to Penrose, and it's basically a first-person narrative.
If all the shocking descriptions of events are lies, for example how he pressured a woman for sex and when she refused he got so angry that he nearly smashed a bottle, then he ought to sue."
The author is leading us through the painful process of damaging a child and planting the seeds of narcissism, of autism, of psychopathology in general. I'm only halfway through the book, and apparently more intimate revelations are yet to come, but what's relayed is informative enough, and done with psychological subtlety, yet with clarity. It is tragic to think that an overbearing and abusive father, and the violent patriarchal society in general, have psychologically crippled perhaps the most brilliant boy in history: a true visionary, a magician; someone who saw through the fabric of the universe and visualised it. I want to dig his father from the grave and punch him. He even tried to prevent Roger from becoming a mathematician, which he considered unworthy and contemptible!
Of course, this isn't pulp fiction like some high-hats complain, and neither is it purely scientific literature, although it gives the reader a clear and comprehensive idea about Roger's scientific pursuits and feats; moreover, doing it poetically. The average reader might even struggle to comprehend the complex ideas; only the "socially awkward mathematicians", as Roger's father put it, might complain there isn't enough science: indeed, there is mainly science, which Roger pursued "with his life".
This is a book about the man, and I'm grateful Sir Roger has decided to be so candid about his life. He could have chosen to remain "a legend", given that "...the feeling remains with me that I have missed out on something. This feeling does not really disturb me provided I can maintain the impression that my work is really worthwhile." It is endearing to think that this Master of the Universe still has regrets over some missed romantic life. We should not infantilise, however; what he's missing is the connection with women, from which the sensitive and joyful boy was severed very early on ("You're not to communicate with girls your age!"); as impressionable as he is, this left an indelible mark on his psyche, as did the all-too-real sense of abandonment, which would lead him to estrange his own children...
P.S. Reading further into the book, it is difficult to retain compassion for Penrose.
It gets ever more bizarre, revealing the full picture of a textbook cerebral narcissist.
I see that most reviewers dismiss the psychological aspect, laid out in detailed length, as superfluous; on the contrary, I think the value of this book is in demonstrating the juxtaposition and co-existence of genius and being an emotional invalid. It's probably astonishing that one could solve the secrets of the universe and live in such arrogant delusion about other people.
One may wonder if he could have really solved the mystery of the universe, had he not suffered a personality disorder. Damn you, Lionel Penrose.
___
I'm finishing the book. And I'm finished with Penrose.
Ended up typing to the author:
"I find a contradiction in your epilogue: on the one hand, you suggest that he'd have been more creative, had he not a personality disorder (which becomes all too evident from the generously shared data); then you state as the aim of the book investigating how science happened, implying that psychopathology (e.g. manifested in the painfully dysfunctional Judith dialogues) somehow still contributed to the creative ideas.
Most of all I'm puzzled by your continued respect and fondness for Penrose, after he was willing to knowingly accept money from a convicted sex offender/ paedophile."
To Ivette Fuentes:
"Hi, I read the Roger Penrose biography which I found shocking yet unsurprising. I commend your firm attitude; in fact, were it not for you, he'd have accepted money from Jeffrey Epstein, knowing he had been a sex offender/paedophile. What strikes me is that you continue your friendship with him afterwards. This is a man who evidently beat his wife, neglected and eventually cut off his children, nearly sexually assaulted a woman, and demanded every woman be his "muse". Someone who didn't care where his source of fame and/or money came from. His wife left him after he told her he didn't care if Joe Rogan was a misogynist, racist, etc., as long as he gave Roger a platform. I just hope you shake yourself from the "magic" you decribe about him (narcissists are "magical" for a reason) and see him for exactly who he is."
I have a response from Ivette Fuentes:
"I am friends with Roger because that book is full of lies. The author twisted things. Clearly with an agenda to attack Roger. I wonder why.
I will not waste my time with this tabloid-like rubbish book."
Part of my reply is: "I would not have imagined the book to be 'all lies', since the author claims to have spent five years talking to Penrose, and it's basically a first-person narrative.
If all the shocking descriptions of events are lies, for example how he pressured a woman for sex and when she refused he got so angry that he nearly smashed a bottle, then he ought to sue."
February 15, 2025
This book is both accurate and disappointing. I can personally vouch for the accuracy of events that took place during the period 1972-5 since Penrose was my advisor at Birkbeck and Oxford. I was one of those grad students who worked on Twistor Theory. The author correctly characterizes Penrose's conviction that complex numbers must play an essential role in General Relativity and provide the link, via twistors, with Quantum Mechanics. Penrose certainly appreciated mathematical beauty be it in physics, art, or puzzles.
As a lowly grad student, I was only dimly aware of Penrose's personal turmoil. The book does an excellent job of filling in the details. It lives up to its title. However, those personal details are, in my opinion, the least interesting aspects of Penrose's life and do not deserve the page count they received.
I was disappointed in the almost complete lack of explanation of any of Penrose's mathematical discoveries. I was hoping for a more technical biography like the excellent ones Siobahn Roberts wrote for Coxeter and Conway. But there is hope. The author acknowledges feedback from Roberts. I hope she picks up the torch. There is ample room for another biography.
As a lowly grad student, I was only dimly aware of Penrose's personal turmoil. The book does an excellent job of filling in the details. It lives up to its title. However, those personal details are, in my opinion, the least interesting aspects of Penrose's life and do not deserve the page count they received.
I was disappointed in the almost complete lack of explanation of any of Penrose's mathematical discoveries. I was hoping for a more technical biography like the excellent ones Siobahn Roberts wrote for Coxeter and Conway. But there is hope. The author acknowledges feedback from Roberts. I hope she picks up the torch. There is ample room for another biography.
December 14, 2024
It is a difficult task condensing a life as rich, as accomplished and as long as Sir Roger Penrose's life. However, I found this book to be a worthy summary of his life. It covers major portion of his professional achievements and his continuing Search to find answers to the most basic yet grand questions about the Universe. It is a well known fact that Sir Roger is a genius yet how much we really know about the personal struggles. This biography puts that journey into focus. Especially, how it affects the people around such a person, with their idiosyncracies and unique perspective on life.
November 1, 2025
Algy met a bear. The bear met Algy. The bear was bulgy; the bulge was Algy!
This little bit of nonsense apparently was delivered quietly to young Roger in a Canadian classroom by an early friend who happened to be a girl, and it cracked him up in much the same way, I imagine, as it cracked me up. That it must have been delivered in a whisper is part of what makes it resonate.
I really enjoyed this book and am surprised by how obscure it seems to be, judging solely by reviews here; also surprising is the negative tone of many of those who have bothered to review it. For me, the book is a perfect blend of Roger's physics and life. To read it is to absorb a fair précis of RP’s life. I think one’s own life experiences will lead one to lean variously towards exasperation, admiration, or melancholy, depending on which parts resonate most strongly.
His early family life sounds very unusual: “intellectually daunting” and “emotionally distant” are two phrases that come to mind. His brothers sound like out-and-out geniuses in their own right; these were kids who played mental chess with each other: mental, as in “without a board and keeping track of the whole game in their head”. And rock-paper-scissors: Roger meticulously kept track of is brother’s win rate as compared with random chance, and found that the only way he could keep from losing above that base rate was to memorize and follow a randomized sequence.
His father, Lionel, deserves credit for intricately explaining the operation of a sundial to toddler Roger, who found here a geometric vision of the universe that characterized his entire future approach to physics and cosmology. Absent Lionel and his explanation of the sundial, would Roger still have become a world-famous scientist? Unknowable.
Lionel also seems to have been a complete ass when it came to the kind of emotional closeness that every child deserves from both of their parents. Unknowable as well is how Roger’s relationships would have played out, had he experienced more unconditional love and less chilly judgement.
His principal female relationships shape a good deal of the book, and other readers seem to fall into two camps: those who feel the depiction is tawdry and destructive of Roger’s reputation, and those who are simply infuriated by his pattern of behavior.
Certainly I would not, and no one should, aspire to be like Roger in marrying Joan, having three kids with her, and then carrying on a protracted emotional affair with a much younger Judith. To those critical of the author for over-emphasis of this lugubrious topic, note that it was Roger who placed the bundle of ancient letters, retrieved from Judith’s effects, into the author’s hands.
In those letters and in his overall lifelong pattern of behavior, Roger reveals himself to be just as oblivious, self-absorbed, and (above all) self-deluding as millions of other middle-aged men around the world. In Judith he found the rare prize of a woman who could appreciate his ideas on mathematics and physics, and who gave him the kind of highly reasoned yet emotionally supportive positive feedback that he so craved, even as his worldwide recognition soared.
Yet, he wanted something more. Over and over, and in various ways, Judith made it known that she didn’t want Roger in that way. There was a crisis of sorts in Trieste, where she needed to say “no” in a physically direct manner. The letters before and after that crisis reveal a Roger who is oblivious to the possibility that Judith might simply be telling him an unarguable truth: her unalterable disinclination to engage in a sexual relationship with a married and much older man. In a very ‘70s way, he psychoanalyzes her and long-windedly reflects on his own feelings. This goes on for years.
In the letters, though Judith may be the ostensible focus, it’s always about Roger: faced with a life-changing medical crisis, maybe Judith will find solace in Roger’s continuing exchanges concerning his research and incipient publications?
It sounds here like I’m disrespecting Roger, but here I am, maundering on about my own reaction to it in the same self-absorbed, middle-aged-man kind of way. So it’s more like recognition, not disrespect.
And the book covers so much more than that. Fascinating to read about the connections with Escher: Penrose’s ideas informed some of Escher’s most famous works, but also, Escher’s works inspired Penrose. Also, I had no idea about all the work he did on black hole physics, certainly not how Stephen Hawking basically stole ideas from him (arguably). Physics and cosmology are recurring themes throughout the book, and these are woven in and written about in a very clever manner.
Like when Barss writes a sentence beginning “13.7 billion years before Roger’s Nobel prize…” you just have to appreciate the craftsmanship. I certainly do, anyway.
Sure it could be seen as sad, that he meandered so far into “fringe” theories of cosmology and physics. Sure, maybe it’s not the same at all, but could it be that someday he will be remembered as another Wegener, the latter being that guy who foresaw plate tectonics but died as an unrecognized maverick?
In this book, Penrose is revealed as a man who sees his own life as something he discovered, rather than invented by his own actions. The mysteries of cosmology are just as intractable as the mysteries of human relationships, and he leaves us with both mysteries not fully solved.
December 23, 2024
The math, geometry and physics went beyond this readers understanding so minimized my appreciation for Penrose’s accomplishments. The sadness of his dysfunctional relationships evoked both empathy and anger. Other than the work on black holes, I’m most disappointed that I never really got a clear idea of why his work was so important.
March 2, 2025
A painful life indeed? Yes, per the editorial blurb. Even that doesn't get as much detail as it maybe could — his childhood, and personal and love life in adulthood. As others have noted, details (which could have been done in a not-too-technical way) of his professional achievements in physics (he DID win a Nobel) could have been spelled out. I think we got as much actual info about his Not.Even.Wrong (and that's what they are, per the old physics bon mot) excursions into the world of consciousness were. (It was interesting, on that, for Barss to note a childhood focus of Penrose's on determinism that may have shaped this.)
As others have noted, this book is "padded" as among its problems.
Example A that stuck out to me? Roger's in North Texas, Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, on some lectureship or something in the late 1960s, and a passage discusses his adjusting an air-conditioning vent. Really? First, extraneous detail. Second, you know he actually did this how, if the detail is factual? Rather, it seems conjectural, but why it's added and why Barss thinks it adds some frisson? I don't know.
Another? In discussing things like Roger's emotional state with his first wife, he'll use adjectives A, B, and C in a paragraph and almost verbatim repeat himself 7-10 pages later.
Then, there's scientific clunkers. You'll see others mentioned elsewhere, but this one, early in the book, caught my eye. Barss talks about seeing "the sky blaz(ing) with starlight, which had travelled billions of light years to create this dazzling display" and he's clearly talking about naked-eye viewing. The Andromeda Galaxy, which we're seeing as a galactic collective, not individual stars, is only a couple of million light years away. We only see individual stars, at maximum, a couple of thousand light-years away.
On Penrose's professional side, a deeper dive into everything he spins off Weyl curvature would have been good. More about his relationship with Hawking, and more on both what some of his peers and some of his graduate assistants thought of this.
More on the bits of what he had semi-right about consciousness, such as his use of the Turing halting theorem to demonstrate non-algorithmic determinism would have been good. More on how he is wrong about Gödel's incompleteness theorems (much of which most people think about is actually under the rubric of Tarski's undefinability theorem), and more. I mean, the Wiki page on the Penrose-Lucas argument has much more than in this book. Barss doesn't even mention the John R. Lucas who is the second name on that argument. Nor does he mention that Lucas was thinking along these lines long before Penrose, and thus that Roger is not original in addition to being Not.Even.Wrong. Nor does he note that, per Wiki, the end result of the argument is really that the human mind is either not a formal system or that it uses other types of logic and that Gödel himself spoke to that end.
Tying strings together, Barss then could have noted why, between his professional life and his personal psychology, continued to insist on such Not.Even.Wrong ideas.
I just couldn't, ultimately, bring myself to give this a gentleman's three stars.
The emotionally abusive childhood Roger suffered, and his passing this on to his two wives, children and other women, and Barss' detailing of that, is the one thing that spares this from one star.
As others have noted, this book is "padded" as among its problems.
Example A that stuck out to me? Roger's in North Texas, Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, on some lectureship or something in the late 1960s, and a passage discusses his adjusting an air-conditioning vent. Really? First, extraneous detail. Second, you know he actually did this how, if the detail is factual? Rather, it seems conjectural, but why it's added and why Barss thinks it adds some frisson? I don't know.
Another? In discussing things like Roger's emotional state with his first wife, he'll use adjectives A, B, and C in a paragraph and almost verbatim repeat himself 7-10 pages later.
Then, there's scientific clunkers. You'll see others mentioned elsewhere, but this one, early in the book, caught my eye. Barss talks about seeing "the sky blaz(ing) with starlight, which had travelled billions of light years to create this dazzling display" and he's clearly talking about naked-eye viewing. The Andromeda Galaxy, which we're seeing as a galactic collective, not individual stars, is only a couple of million light years away. We only see individual stars, at maximum, a couple of thousand light-years away.
On Penrose's professional side, a deeper dive into everything he spins off Weyl curvature would have been good. More about his relationship with Hawking, and more on both what some of his peers and some of his graduate assistants thought of this.
More on the bits of what he had semi-right about consciousness, such as his use of the Turing halting theorem to demonstrate non-algorithmic determinism would have been good. More on how he is wrong about Gödel's incompleteness theorems (much of which most people think about is actually under the rubric of Tarski's undefinability theorem), and more. I mean, the Wiki page on the Penrose-Lucas argument has much more than in this book. Barss doesn't even mention the John R. Lucas who is the second name on that argument. Nor does he mention that Lucas was thinking along these lines long before Penrose, and thus that Roger is not original in addition to being Not.Even.Wrong. Nor does he note that, per Wiki, the end result of the argument is really that the human mind is either not a formal system or that it uses other types of logic and that Gödel himself spoke to that end.
Tying strings together, Barss then could have noted why, between his professional life and his personal psychology, continued to insist on such Not.Even.Wrong ideas.
I just couldn't, ultimately, bring myself to give this a gentleman's three stars.
The emotionally abusive childhood Roger suffered, and his passing this on to his two wives, children and other women, and Barss' detailing of that, is the one thing that spares this from one star.
January 10, 2025
My reactions to this book are mixed but it certainly made an impression. I'm not terribly interested in Penrose's difficult relationships with women which gets far too much attention. Other than those involved, basically who cares. But it does paint part of a broader picture. The author seems unwilling to say it but I will - an extremely unflattering one. I won't elaborate further. Read the book and decide for yourself. Is it other people who suffer!? It always is.
As a biography of ideas the book is fairly light-weight. It would be difficult to do much justice to Penrose's brilliant and magnificent achievements in physics and math in just a biography. The author does not do much more than mention them along with a few skimpy attempts to explain a few bits here and there. Twistor theory! Good luck explaining that in a pop-level account. The singularity theorem! For which he eventually got the Nobel prize. And much else. The book did nicely weave in impossible objects, aperiodic tiling and the works of Escher.
I was fascinated by the author's account of Penrose's descent into theories about non-computability, consciousness, and Godel's theorem. And it was definitely a descent. It was all crap and everybody - except possibly the hucksters using him - clearly knew it.
For the thousandth time Godel did not prove that 'there were truths that can't be proved'. He proved that 'there are some truths that can be proved by certain types of self-referential argument but which could not be DERIVED in any of the existing systems of logic, or even any system even vaguely like them'. It was the existing logics that were INCOMPLETE. This is math logic 101, maybe 201. Naturally enough Godel himself, and some of his colleagues from the 1930s onwards looked for novel ways to extend logic. And they were looking at early forms of infinity axioms - as one possible approach - right from the very start. A far more sensible and practical approach than pseudo mystical pop-journalistic whining about 'truths that cant be proved' which just muddies the picture and confuses almost everyone, including it would seem Penrose himself.
As a biography of ideas the book is fairly light-weight. It would be difficult to do much justice to Penrose's brilliant and magnificent achievements in physics and math in just a biography. The author does not do much more than mention them along with a few skimpy attempts to explain a few bits here and there. Twistor theory! Good luck explaining that in a pop-level account. The singularity theorem! For which he eventually got the Nobel prize. And much else. The book did nicely weave in impossible objects, aperiodic tiling and the works of Escher.
I was fascinated by the author's account of Penrose's descent into theories about non-computability, consciousness, and Godel's theorem. And it was definitely a descent. It was all crap and everybody - except possibly the hucksters using him - clearly knew it.
For the thousandth time Godel did not prove that 'there were truths that can't be proved'. He proved that 'there are some truths that can be proved by certain types of self-referential argument but which could not be DERIVED in any of the existing systems of logic, or even any system even vaguely like them'. It was the existing logics that were INCOMPLETE. This is math logic 101, maybe 201. Naturally enough Godel himself, and some of his colleagues from the 1930s onwards looked for novel ways to extend logic. And they were looking at early forms of infinity axioms - as one possible approach - right from the very start. A far more sensible and practical approach than pseudo mystical pop-journalistic whining about 'truths that cant be proved' which just muddies the picture and confuses almost everyone, including it would seem Penrose himself.
March 5, 2025
For interest level, this is right there with another autobiography Chrystia.
Nothing similar, just comparable in terms in the fact that there were some chapters that held my interest while others did not hold my interest.
What is interesting about reviews of this book will be the two sides of the argument which will cause many to not enjoy the book as much as they might.
On one side will be the mathy type people who love the progress made in the math and physics world because of this man.
I would say that there was a lot of math and science developments in this book. Some of it I listened to with significant interest and care, such as his discussions and revelations about black holes. Others definitely went over my head. I like to think I am a solid math thinker, but definitely not at a university graduate level. The mathy people will not like the humanistic side of his life.
It is quite clear that this was a genius who needed women in his life to keep going. This is a reality of life that we all need companionship and that a healthy mind is fed by being happy. The book regularly discusses his "muses" and the importance of his relationships.
On the other side are the non math people who would enjoy the life of Roger but would not enjoy the math and physics conversations, which as indicated above did go a bit deep at times. The reality of his life is that he was a thinker in this area above almost everyone else in the world. I would say it was important to discuss his math accomplishments but it will lose the reader in parts, I know I was left in some moments wondering what the heck I just listened to.
I think the combination of his relationships and math accomplishments made this a very readable book, but not at a high level.....at least not for me.
Nothing similar, just comparable in terms in the fact that there were some chapters that held my interest while others did not hold my interest.
What is interesting about reviews of this book will be the two sides of the argument which will cause many to not enjoy the book as much as they might.
On one side will be the mathy type people who love the progress made in the math and physics world because of this man.
I would say that there was a lot of math and science developments in this book. Some of it I listened to with significant interest and care, such as his discussions and revelations about black holes. Others definitely went over my head. I like to think I am a solid math thinker, but definitely not at a university graduate level. The mathy people will not like the humanistic side of his life.
It is quite clear that this was a genius who needed women in his life to keep going. This is a reality of life that we all need companionship and that a healthy mind is fed by being happy. The book regularly discusses his "muses" and the importance of his relationships.
On the other side are the non math people who would enjoy the life of Roger but would not enjoy the math and physics conversations, which as indicated above did go a bit deep at times. The reality of his life is that he was a thinker in this area above almost everyone else in the world. I would say it was important to discuss his math accomplishments but it will lose the reader in parts, I know I was left in some moments wondering what the heck I just listened to.
I think the combination of his relationships and math accomplishments made this a very readable book, but not at a high level.....at least not for me.
April 24, 2025
This book was both a fascinating and difficult read for me. Roger Penrose has been a hero of mine since my teens. I developed a fascination with Relativity that we well developed by my mid teens, and was a strong factor in pushing me to improve my understanding of mathematics at the time.
I was aware of Roger Penrose as a result, and still cherish the memory of attending a dinner where he, Frank Close, and a number of other luminaries were present when I was, 16, I believe, in Oxford.
I probably share (perhaps with equal irrationality) Penrose's hope or belief that in the great disagreement between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity the latter will prevail, not least for its inherent mathematical beauty. I also agree that Penrose's achievements were overshadowed at times, unfairly, by those of Stephen Hawking.
Understanding a little more about Roger Penrose's life and thoughts, and scientific ideas, which are sometimes now mainstream and essential (his early work on Black Holes) or his later ideas which were - at least - never dull. Before I read this book, I was fascinated by his idea that in the ultimate heat death of the Universe if there are only photons and other light speed denizens - with all matter having decayed away or recycled into photons by Black Holes, that without a need for "clocks" then there would be no distance, and so, essentially a singularity again. It's a beautiful idea... but mathematicians are drawn to beauty but should also be wary of the treachery of ideas that can be false all the same.
The most difficult aspect of this book to read is the terrible toll of this stellar (pun intended) career on the special people in his life, and even if it isn't really acknoweldged, no doubt on Roger himself.
A book well worth reading for those interested in the philosophy or history of science.
I was aware of Roger Penrose as a result, and still cherish the memory of attending a dinner where he, Frank Close, and a number of other luminaries were present when I was, 16, I believe, in Oxford.
I probably share (perhaps with equal irrationality) Penrose's hope or belief that in the great disagreement between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity the latter will prevail, not least for its inherent mathematical beauty. I also agree that Penrose's achievements were overshadowed at times, unfairly, by those of Stephen Hawking.
Understanding a little more about Roger Penrose's life and thoughts, and scientific ideas, which are sometimes now mainstream and essential (his early work on Black Holes) or his later ideas which were - at least - never dull. Before I read this book, I was fascinated by his idea that in the ultimate heat death of the Universe if there are only photons and other light speed denizens - with all matter having decayed away or recycled into photons by Black Holes, that without a need for "clocks" then there would be no distance, and so, essentially a singularity again. It's a beautiful idea... but mathematicians are drawn to beauty but should also be wary of the treachery of ideas that can be false all the same.
The most difficult aspect of this book to read is the terrible toll of this stellar (pun intended) career on the special people in his life, and even if it isn't really acknoweldged, no doubt on Roger himself.
A book well worth reading for those interested in the philosophy or history of science.
April 25, 2025
Barss's biography of Roger Penrose frequently focuses on the series of women that would unwittingly / unwilling become Penrose's muses, his sources of dopamine that would fuel and give meaning to his brilliant work. These accounts may be contributing to the book's mixed reviews.
A few excerpts to give a feeling of the writing style:
- - -
At the atomic level, a sprouting acorn and an ancient oak barely differ. Both are made from materials nearly as old as time itself. Only at more coarse-grain levels, those of cells, tissues, organs, organisms, do living things become young or old, inexperienced or wise, ripe or rotten. The chemistry and biology of life, death, aging, and decay mask the enduring physics beneath.
- - -
light in a vacuum moves as the speed of causality. Other phenomena including gravitational waves travel at the same speed. Exceeding the speed of causality would create paradoxes in which events happened before the circumstances that caused them.
- - -
Each door Roger pushed open took him further from a life he was coming to detest. He escaped from reality by venturing deeper into it.
- - -
"In standing outside the fray and criticizing the central dogmas of fundamental physics, Penrose is playing the role of Einstein, who force quantum theorists to defend and hone their ideas. And Sir Fred Hoyle, who persistently challenged big bang theorists to sharpen their ideas. This is an extremely important role, and long may Penrose fulfill it", Marcus Chown wrote in the Times's Higher Education, echoing Daniel Dennett's sentiment that Roger was wrong in an interesting way.
- - -
I [Barss] asked him if he considered himself to be a generally happy, unhappy, or neutral person. With long pauses, he said "Listen to the opening of Bach's Saint Mathew's Passion, it's happy and sad at the same time".
- - -
A few excerpts to give a feeling of the writing style:
- - -
At the atomic level, a sprouting acorn and an ancient oak barely differ. Both are made from materials nearly as old as time itself. Only at more coarse-grain levels, those of cells, tissues, organs, organisms, do living things become young or old, inexperienced or wise, ripe or rotten. The chemistry and biology of life, death, aging, and decay mask the enduring physics beneath.
- - -
light in a vacuum moves as the speed of causality. Other phenomena including gravitational waves travel at the same speed. Exceeding the speed of causality would create paradoxes in which events happened before the circumstances that caused them.
- - -
Each door Roger pushed open took him further from a life he was coming to detest. He escaped from reality by venturing deeper into it.
- - -
"In standing outside the fray and criticizing the central dogmas of fundamental physics, Penrose is playing the role of Einstein, who force quantum theorists to defend and hone their ideas. And Sir Fred Hoyle, who persistently challenged big bang theorists to sharpen their ideas. This is an extremely important role, and long may Penrose fulfill it", Marcus Chown wrote in the Times's Higher Education, echoing Daniel Dennett's sentiment that Roger was wrong in an interesting way.
- - -
I [Barss] asked him if he considered himself to be a generally happy, unhappy, or neutral person. With long pauses, he said "Listen to the opening of Bach's Saint Mathew's Passion, it's happy and sad at the same time".
- - -
August 7, 2025
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A FLAWED FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF A CREATIVE MATHEMATICAL GENIUS
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"The sheer brilliance of Roger!
He's one of the handful of people I've met in my life I would apply the word 'genius' to.
If you forget [his] twistor theory, forget his ideas about quantum mechanics, about everything else and just look at his contributions to classical relativity---I would say he's the most important person who worked on the subject after Einstein."
The above quote (in italics) comes from this biography (of mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, b. 1931) by Patchen Barss. He is a Toronto-based science journalist. Barss is also the author of several books.
Penrose is one of the greatest figures in mathematics and mathematical physics in the second half of the twentieth century and perhaps the dominant theorist in the field of general relativity. (Mathematical physics is the development of mathematical methods to problems in physics.)
This biography provides a lot of details about Penrose's life & work and those of others who worked with him.
Unfortunately, this book pairs a largely good discussion of Penrose's scientific career with a VERY extensive and unsympathetic discussion of his personal life. The result is that Penrose's personal life actually overshadows his long list of scientific accomplishments and awards (only a few are mentioned) , making them seem almost secondary and even trivial (to me at least).
Finally, this attitude is especially evident when we're told that Penrose won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. That's fine. But why did he win? We're never told. Doing my own research, I discovered that he won "for his discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the General Theory of Relativity."
In conclusion, for the pertinent details of Roger Penrose's personal life, this is the book to get but for the details of the story of his genius, we're going to have to wait for another book!!
XXXXX
(2024; prologue; 19 chapters; main narrative 300 pages; author's note; acknowledgments; art credits; notes; index; about the author)
XXXXX
A FLAWED FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF A CREATIVE MATHEMATICAL GENIUS
XXXXX
"The sheer brilliance of Roger!
He's one of the handful of people I've met in my life I would apply the word 'genius' to.
If you forget [his] twistor theory, forget his ideas about quantum mechanics, about everything else and just look at his contributions to classical relativity---I would say he's the most important person who worked on the subject after Einstein."
The above quote (in italics) comes from this biography (of mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, b. 1931) by Patchen Barss. He is a Toronto-based science journalist. Barss is also the author of several books.
Penrose is one of the greatest figures in mathematics and mathematical physics in the second half of the twentieth century and perhaps the dominant theorist in the field of general relativity. (Mathematical physics is the development of mathematical methods to problems in physics.)
This biography provides a lot of details about Penrose's life & work and those of others who worked with him.
Unfortunately, this book pairs a largely good discussion of Penrose's scientific career with a VERY extensive and unsympathetic discussion of his personal life. The result is that Penrose's personal life actually overshadows his long list of scientific accomplishments and awards (only a few are mentioned) , making them seem almost secondary and even trivial (to me at least).
Finally, this attitude is especially evident when we're told that Penrose won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. That's fine. But why did he win? We're never told. Doing my own research, I discovered that he won "for his discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the General Theory of Relativity."
In conclusion, for the pertinent details of Roger Penrose's personal life, this is the book to get but for the details of the story of his genius, we're going to have to wait for another book!!
XXXXX
(2024; prologue; 19 chapters; main narrative 300 pages; author's note; acknowledgments; art credits; notes; index; about the author)
XXXXX
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