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Roger Penrose one of the great living scientists. a multifaceted genius. His works have opened new avenues for both mathematics and physics. In my field of study, quantum gravity, for example, we describe the quantum states of spacetime using mathematical objects invented by Penrose, called spin networks.
Far from fashions and power groups
Deeply independent in his way of thinking, Penrose shunned scientific fads and large scientific power groups. For me, it represents the science that fascinates me the most: free, independent, lonely intelligence, driven by curiosity, which opens up new perspectives on the world. But Penrose is also a lovely person. An extremely kind and discreet Englishman whose eyes, in his late nineties, sparkle with passion when he talks about his new ideas. A model of fairness, available, without arrogance, which we all love.
Progress in black holes
His Nobel pays tribute to this ancient way of being a scientist. It also recognizes the extreme vitality that the physics of gravitation, the physics of the cosmos, the physics of space and time have today. Only three years ago the Nobel Prize for the detection of gravitational waves. This year, the Penrose, Genzel and Ghez Prize recognizes two key steps in our understanding of black holes: the most extraordinary objects we have discovered in the universe, made solely by the curvature of space and time.
In the footsteps of Einstein and Galileo
Penrose showed that Einstein’s theory predicts that the formation of these objects is difficult to avoid. Genzel and Ghez have provided compelling evidence for their actual existence by photographing the motion of a group of stars at the center of our galaxy and showing that they dance around the central black hole, a monster 4 million times the mass of the Sun. In the same way that the planets of our small solar system dance around our little Sun. We are on the trail of Galileo: the intuitions and mathematics of a scientific genius and our gaze that opens towards the universe, together showing us, around us, phenomena extraordinary and unexpected.
October 7, 2020 (change October 7, 2020 | 10:50 am)
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