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

What can fashionable ideas, blind faith, or pure fantasy possibly have to do with the scientific quest to understand the universe? Surely, theoretical physicists are immune to mere trends, dogmatic beliefs, or flights of fancy? In fact, acclaimed physicist and bestselling author Roger Penrose argues that researchers working at the extreme frontiers of physics are just as susceptible to these forces as anyone else. In this provocative book, he argues that fashion, faith, and fantasy, while sometimes productive and even essential in physics, may be leading today's researchers astray in three of the field's most important areas-string theory, quantum mechanics, and cosmology.
Arguing that string theory has veered away from physical reality by positing six extra hidden dimensions, Penrose cautions that the fashionable nature of a theory can cloud our judgment of its plausibility. In the case of quantum mechanics, its stunning success in explaining the atomic universe has led to an uncritical faith that it must also apply to reasonably massive objects, and Penrose responds by suggesting possible changes in quantum theory. Turning to cosmology, he argues that most of the current fantastical ideas about the origins of the universe cannot be true, but that an even wilder reality may lie behind them. Finally, Penrose describes how fashion, faith, and fantasy have ironically also shaped his own work, from twistor theory, a possible alternative to string theory that is beginning to acquire a fashionable status, to "conformal cyclic cosmology," an idea so fantastic that it could be called "conformal crazy cosmology."
The result is an important critique of some of the most significant developments in physics today from one of its most eminent figures.
Roger Penrose, one the world's foremost theoretical physicists, has won numerous prizes, including the Albert Einstein Medal, for his fundamental contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He is the bestselling author, with Stephen Hawking, of The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton). Penrose's other books include Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe and The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe (both Vintage). He is the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at the University of Oxford and lives in Oxford, England.

[@nemesis4785]

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

[@frankhoward4485]

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

[@el34glo59]

Frank Howard I know. He's my favorite by far. It's such a shame he's getting old. At least he's aged amazingly and never lost his wits. It's unbelievable when you think about it. Shows you how smart he is. Brilliant. In hope someone similar comes along too. I really do.

[@BartAlder]

His book "The Road to Reality" is no less than a complete mathematical physics course. It's almost unbelievable how good it is at the exposition of tricky thinking and more advanced methods in mathematics. I love that he treats readers and his audiences like curious and intelligent human beings instead of 'talking down to the plebeians' as so many science presenters do.

[@squamish4244]

Yeah...Lawrence Krauss...

[@timmbrockmann959]

@@el34glo59 Totally agree, just thought the same today, it´s indeed a shame that he won´t be here forever. He´s really in a different league, and his mind is fascinating. He´s kind of old-fashioned, traditional, but at the same time forward thinking and provoking new ideas.

[@el34glo59]

@@timmbrockmann959 Agreed. Very open minded and absurdly brilliant at the same time. We need more people like this

[@squamish4244]

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

[@JayakrishnanNairOmana]

well hawking was penrose's grad student

[@coastwalker101]

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

[@edsmith9846]

Roger Penrose is a gift to humanity.

[@marekrudnicki9756]

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

[@Fransamsterdam]

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

[@Dreadtower]

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

[@robertj.simpson354]

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

[@mdomoradzki]

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

[@walshamite]

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

[@Fransamsterdam]

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

[@tarekazzam389]

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

[@wojciechskorupski3755]

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

[@nyttag7830]

Absolutely brilliant guy.

[@Fransamsterdam]

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

[@saidsenhadji]

Awesome lecture!!

[@harleyxxfabco]

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

[@geoden]

That's probably because you aren't a genius!

[@brendawilliams8062]

He is so calming. I am at a loss as to what you could possibly mean.

[@jacintomesazanon]

Lastima ....¿hay alguna forma de escuchar los vídeos TRADUCIDOS AL ESPAÑOL?

[@klaudiusznowak7971]

Strasznie denerwuje mnie oglądanie jak słynny naukowiec przyjeżdża do Polski ,męczy sie z jakimś badziewiem w ręku i musi zadzierać głowę na wysokość 2 piętra. Kto to do cholery organizuje?

[@prokreacjonistatube]

to zorganizuj coś lepszego

[@lonc1000]

@@prokreacjonistatube mam nadzieję że trollujesz, mnie samego kark boli kiedy patrzę na sir Rogera męczącego się podczas tego wykładu!

[@brendawilliams8062]

Thankyou

[@tarekazzam389]

Elie Cartan & Henri Cartan N - Dim. Space Infinities

[@tarekazzam389]

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

[@dalesmith4609]

Why are people looking at their phones?

[@tarekazzam389]

Interesting: if you a high Number of Dimensions of Space, the Number of Components of the Field - say Electric, Gravitational, - on that Space is irrelevant! Now I may combine this Information with some other Insight I found in one of Alexander Polyakov's Papers. But more about that later, Roger. Kaluza - Klein, yes. Functional Freedom is in the Space Dims,rather than Time. Extra - Dimensions have the same issue of not being Elements of Functional Freedom. So Penrose wonders how String People give Extra Dims Compactification Shapes etc...One Quantum exited in Extra - Dim is not concerned with the Locality . It involves the whole Universe! What does that mean? QM works too well in the Domain of Physical Parameters and for the Phenomena "we" have tested observed. Scandinavian History Interlude: Hans Christian Andersen. Mermaid. Bohr's Famous Statement: Quantum Measurement = Irreversible Act of Magnification. Quantum World = Unitary Evolution. Notice Roger : You presuppose! that Quantum System's Behvior before Measurement and the Mathematical Method by means of which you describe it : are necessarily identical! What do you mean by Quantum Superposition of Gravitational Fields? Be more specific/concrete.

[@jarneyfs1]

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

[@KipIngram]

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

[@robbie_]

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

[@DennisMHenderson]

Rob Inson what ever you can do

[@truebaran]

I also find it not convincing: first one has to choose with which class of functions one works (smooth, analytic, continuous, measurable). In the measurable setting in fact everything is the same: there is only one up to isomorphism standard probability Borel space without atoms (the interval [0,1] with Lebesgue measure). As far as I know people working with Loop Quantum Gravity work with measurable functions (I have seen this as an objection against LQG since their ,,loops'' are measurable maps from the circle-but the image of a circle by measurable map may look completely different from circle-but in fact the same is true even for continuous maps i.e. Peano curve). But what I wanted to stress: if you work with ANALYTIC functions then the smaller the set the larger class of functions: this is because being analytic is a condition for a convergence of a power series and such a series could be divergent in some bigger region being still convergent in the smaller one. There are theorems supporting this point of view: two analytic functions which are the same on a set with accumulation point are in fact identical. For smooth (or continuous) functions the situation is completely opposite: one can define smooth functions locally and then glue them together so in some sense the larger the region the more smooth functions you admit. Finally one can adopt the point of view of Fourier series: any square integrable function on a interval is determined by its Fourier coefficient and then this really comes down to ,,counting'' and this point of view ignores the size of the space on which functions are defined. Of course there are many detils here (working with open or closed sets, allowing functions to oscillate, on unbounded domains one no more has Fourier coefficient) but I think that all these details somehow support my position that the argument is not convincing.

[@kingofmaiars]

Basically what he says is if we had a higher spacial dimensions like the 25 number string theorists claim, we would inevitably see it's effects dominate the night sky. Maybe too difficult to observe on earth. We don't have nearly enough of the energies needed to excite a particle to act upon a higher dimension, but the universe has ample energy. Milkyway has enough to spare. Supermassive black holes have the energy as well. So far it hasn't been observed, and they've been looking for a long time now.

[@deanlett9683]

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

[@edwardlewandowski5473]

🎆🕊️📯✋🍀Respect 💐🎀🇵🇱good luck

[@Legarzlego]

Nieee! Serio? Naprawdę myślicie, że fajnie będzie bez tłumaczenia? Gdybym znał angielski tak doskonale, by zrozumieć wykład o najnowszych teoriach fizycznych, to bym nie wchodził na polski portal! Zastanówcie się nad celem istnienia waszego portalu. Jesteście cenni, gdy mówicie po Polsku o nauce. Mówiąc po angielsku o nauce, jesteście jednym z milionów portalów! I, niestety, nie najlepszym z nich!

[@Wulfen2]

mimo wszystko szkoda że nie ma napisów :(

[@CopernicusCenter]

Napisy w języku polskim zostaną wkrótce dodane. Docierały do nas prośby, żeby wykład udostępnić jak najszybciej, więc zrobiliśmy to przed sporządzeniem tłumaczenia. Proszę mieć na względzie, że jest to zadanie bardzo czasochłonne. Jak zawsze, zachęcamy widzów do pomocy. KZbin umożliwia taką współpracę.

[@AntySyjon]

Bez przesady, jest to co prawda naukowa nomenklatura, natomiast cały wykład jest powiedziany przystępnym językiem i ja z angielskim na poziomie B1 i na etapie nauki na B2 zrozumiałem bez problemu 70% wykładu

[@Legarzlego]

"Napisy w języku polskim zostaną wkrótce dodane." - minęły trzy tygodnie od tego wpisu. Jaka jest definicja "wkrótce"? "Jak zawsze, zachęcamy widzów do pomocy" - dlaczego osoba, która jest wstanie przetłumaczyć wykład Penrose'a, miałaby zrobić to z Waszego portalu, a nie z portalu TED, gdzie wypowiedzi są o wiele bardziej złożone?

[@osochozi5647]

Ponawiam prośbę pana Sylwestra.

[@edwardlewandowski4334]

Sir Roger🤔mistrz🤚⚠️📯

[@meofamily4]

A major, and effective, objection to string theories is, that they cannot be tested against reality. Professor Penrose does not share that objection; this is natural, since he gives us here a cosmological theory which also cannot be tested against reality. As with string theory, we are confronted with a lot of mathematics which has no physical consequence.

[@truebaran]

There are some ways of testing this idea-I'm not saying I'm convinced (I'm not an expert) but you can check out ,,Apparent evidence for Hawking points in the CMB sky''

[@brendawilliams8062]

A hope is expressed that there may be a method of coexistence. It might be found with experimental mechanisms or it might not be found. It might be found in ways not expected. Nonetheless, there has to be some explanation. If not the two forms will just have to shake hands and find grounds to trust on.

[@edwardlewandowski2512]

🤚🍀

[@edwardlewandowski5473]

🎆🕊️📯✋🍀Respect 💐🎀🇵🇱

[@DennisMHenderson]

Finite Is extraction from one infinite. My buddy 'Darly tol me

[@Fransamsterdam]

If you have to introduce Sir Roger Penrose at the Copernicus Center for a talk titled "FASHION, faith and fantasy" maybe you should have a look in the mirror.

[@btbbbiologythebrainbuffer6012]

Marvel of science-religion

[@Wulfen2]

szkoda że nie ma napisów :(

[@mateuszs.9773]

Są

[@PerfectBlue7]

TL;DW someone ?

[@kamalmichael]

There is no beauty. .on the range of elegant to a non elegant universe, we are strongly on the side of the non elegant. ..take the mueon for example..what's that all about...not needed...if non elegant

[@AaliaSSailaA]

Wersja z lektorem, dla polskojezycznej grupy, nie jest oczywiscie dostepna bo i po co ? .. Kazdy szanujacy sie ksiadz zna przeciez jezyk angielski na poziomie zaawansowanym a reszta sama sobie winna wlaczajac slepych.. pozdrawiam .. English - The version with the lector, for the Polish-speaking group, is of course not available because what for? .. Every self-respecting priest knows English at an advanced level and the rest of themselves should include the blind .. best regards ..

[@CopernicusCenter]

Szanowna Pani, do wykładu dostępne są napisy w języku polskim. Pozdrawiamy.

[@AaliaSSailaA]

SLEPI SIE UCIESZA .. JA NP NIE JESTE MCIEKAWY WISEROWNKOW A TAKSTOW I CHETNIE SLUCHAL BYM PODCZAS PODROZY CZY PODCZAS PRACY .. ALE NAUKOWCY JAKOS NIE UMIA ZALATWIC STRAWY AKUSTYKI I LEKTORA ..

[@paulg444]

fantastic , fabulous guy, .. but he needs a hair cut!.. I mean fashion is important.

[@HarryNicNicholas]

how did you persuade count dracula to do the intro? and disguised as a priest? is that some kind of joke? thank goodness for fast forward. santa claus: knows who is naughty, knows who is nice. god: knows who is naughty, knows who is nice.

[@korsoblejder1640]

Bardzo słaby wykład nudny człowiek możę sie schować przy innych popularyzatorach fizyki aczkowlwiek jest on bardzie naukowcem z krwi i kośći niż popularyzatorem

[@kamalmichael]

Priest..u r out j numbered with people with realistic views of the universe ..go back to u r Adam and Eve

[@tomtomy8702]

That priest is a famous physicist and Penrose said at the beginning the he is even come down to do the lecture in the first place to mark that priest s birthday, (since they are friends in private life)

[@markphc99]

i read his Emperors New Mind , in which, after a considerable preamble reviewing topics in physics, he posited that quantum effects in brain microtubules were responsible for conciousness. No evidence was supplied, because there was none, and the theory was ' not even wrong'.A lousy book from an otherwise great mind.

[@robbie_]

Shame you didn't read the follow-on book, Shadows of the Mind - or any of the research since then. Quantum Biology is a new and fascinating field. You should listen to people who've been right about things in the past. They have a habit of being right more often than not.

[@kamalmichael]

Priest..u r out j numbered with people with realistic views of the universe ..go back to u r Adam and Eve