Sir Roger Penrose of Oxford University

An Example of Penrose Tiles

I recently came across this great interview by Discover Magazine with Sir Roger Penrose of Oxford University.  Penrose has made monumental contributions to theoretical physics, geometry, and mathematics.  He’s also the author of The Emperor’s New Mind and The Road To Reality, and invented what are now called Penrose tiles, which are geometric shapes that can be tiled together to create solid surface (see the graphic on the right…)

Penrose talks about the problems with quantum physics and string theory, leading to mass belief within the scientific communities of “many worlds” and other non-sensical interpretations of how the universe works.   Here’s a bit of what Penrose had to about why we’ve gotten to where we are:

And in a certain sense, I blame quantum mechanics, because people say, “Well, quantum mechanics is so nonintuitive; if you believe that, you can believe anything that’s non­intuitive.”

I posted my thoughts on this subject a while back (which is in line with Penrose’s…), and it’s always good to have people questioning the conventional wisdom in order to get to what’s really true.  This interview is definitely worth a read…