Starred review from November 1, 2024
One of the greatest physicists and mathematicians of the past century receives his first biography. Science journalist Barss, author ofFlow Spin Flow: Looking for Patterns in Nature, does a fine job with a difficult subject. Penrose, now 93, did not win his Nobel Prize until 2020. Few deny his genius, but explanations of his groundbreaking discoveries are, like Stephen Hawking's, likely to baffle a lay audience and were no snap for his colleagues. His Ph.D. advisors, world-class mathematicians, acclaimed his thesis but found it "by no means light reading." Einstein's relativity, which illuminated space, time, and gravity, is easier to explain. Penrose discovered the limitations of relativity but also simplified many of its complex equations. Ironically for a mathematician, Penrose disliked equations, preferring to view the cosmos visually. This fascination with geometry has made his name best known for a few dazzling optical illusions such as the Penrose triangle and Penrose staircase. Penrose's genius was no secret. He was showered with honors, lectured, traveled the world, and enjoyed collaboration and quarrels with fellow scientists. His personal life was less satisfactory, although Barss has a much easier time explaining it. His brilliant but distant father encouraged a fascination with science and puzzles but seems to have left his son emotionally challenged. A popular speaker, Penrose had no trouble dealing with fellow scientists but seemed unable to handle intimate relationships. Intensely attracted to energetic, accomplished women, often fellow mathematicians, he married two but carried on long relationships with others whom he openly referred to as his "muses," preferring to pepper them with his papers and solicit feedback, behavior they found both flattering and creepy. Readers may incline toward creepy. Superb insights into a flawed genius.
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Starred review from September 30, 2024
Science journalist Barss (The Erotic Engine) presents a penetrating, warts and all biography of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose. A socially awkward kid from an unaffectionate family, Penrose had a meager social life that he compensated for by focusing his “psychic energies” on developing his intellect. Covering the milestones of Penrose’s career, Barss recounts how, in his 30s, he upended theoretical physics in 1965 with his singularity theorem, which proved general relativity is incomplete because it can’t account for the infinite density found inside black holes, and invented twistor theory, a conceptualization of space-time that he believes might reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. Barss’s sensitive handling of Penrose’s tumultuous personal life puts this a notch above other “great minds” biographies. For example, Barss writes that Penrose, like his father before him, “placed his work ahead of all other concerns,” expressing indifference toward his romantic partners and children, and believing his single-minded focus on physics was an “inevitable and necessary” condition of his genius. Drawing on extensive interviews with Penrose, Barss balances reverence for his subject’s “rare capacity to... think in four dimensions” against an unsparing recognition that he “would have been no less a physicist if he had... made more room for the people who loved, understood, and supported him.” The result is a haunting portrait of a brilliant scientist unwilling to confront his personal shortcomings. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency.