Eschermatics: Roger Penrose Lecture & VR Experience
Roger Penrose’s work has ranged across many aspects of mathematics and its applications, from his influential work on gravitational collapse to his work on quantum mechanics and general relativity. Roger has long had an interest in and influence on the visual arts and their connections to mathematics, most notably in his collaboration with Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. In this lecture he will use Escher’s work to illustrate and explain important mathematical ideas and explain how he thinks about our Universe geometrically. After the talk, you'll have an opportunity to experience Roger’s work in Virtual Reality (VR): walk around his impossible shapes and explore his models of the Universe. Bio Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Professor at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow at Wadham College and winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics, has made profound contributions across a broad range of scientific disciplines. His work encompasses geometry, black hole singularities, the unification of quantum mechanics and gravity, the structure of space-time and the origin of our Universe. His geometric creations inspired the works of Escher, and the Penrose steps have been featured in several movies. His tilings adorn many public buildings, including the Oxford Mathematics Institute, and decorate the San Francisco Transbay Terminal. The five-fold symmetry, initially thought impossible or a mathematical curiosity, has now been found in nature. In 1989 Penrose wrote The Emperor’s New Mind, which challenged the premise that consciousness is computation and proposes we need new physics to understand it.