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Physics

What is the price of genius, asks biography of Roger Penrose

The Impossible Man by Patchen Barss salutes Roger Penrose's groundbreaking work in physics and mathematics while challenging the idea that a genius should be exempt from ordinary obligations

By Chelsea Whyte

6 November 2024

2X1H226 Klosterneuburg - Sir Roger Penrose during interview with Austria Presse Agentur at Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria on 21st May 2015. Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. - 20150521_PD11744 - Rechteinfo: Rights Managed (RM)

Roger Penrose, at the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria

APA-PictureDesk/Alamy

The Impossible Man
Patchen Barss (Atlantic Books (UK, 14 November); Basic Books (US, 12 November))

Many people still believe (and many scientists tell themselves) that genius is a solitary affair, that what they do is so important it merits exemption from everyday life and the obligations of intimate relationships.

As his subtitle suggests, Patchen Barss doesn’t endorse this notion in The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the cost of genius, as he charts the life of one of the most influential physicists of the 20th century. The biography…

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