Promotional Information

'A truly remarkable book - this is just the sort of book that could inspire mathematical awakenings.' Sunday Times

About the Author

Roger Penrose is one the world's foremost theoretical physicists, and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020. He has won numerous other prizes, including the Albert Einstein Medal, for his fundamental contributions to general relativity and cosmology.

He is the bestselling author of The Road to Reality- A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe and Cycles of Time- An Extraordinary New View of the Universe. His other books include Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, The Emperor's New Mind, Shadows of the Mind and, with Stephen Hawking, The Nature of Space and Time. He is the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at the University of Oxford, and lives in Oxford.

Reviews

Penrose is truly one of the world's leading mathematical physicists. Genuinely magnificent and stimulating
*Scotland on Sunday*

Science needs more people like Penrose, willing and able to point out the flaws in fashionable models from a position of authority, and to signpost alternative roads to follow
*Independent*

This is a tour de force that is unlikely to be bettered this decade
*Financial Times*

Penrose is truly one of the world's leading mathematical physicists. Genuinely magnificent and stimulating * Scotland on Sunday *
Science needs more people like Penrose, willing and able to point out the flaws in fashionable models from a position of authority, and to signpost alternative roads to follow * Independent *
This is a tour de force that is unlikely to be bettered this decade * Financial Times *

At first, this hefty new tome from Oxford physicist Penrose (The Emperor's New Mind) looks suspiciously like a textbook, complete with hundreds of diagrams and pages full of mathematical notation. On a closer reading, however, one discovers that the book is something entirely different and far more remarkable. Unlike a textbook, the purpose of which is purely to impart information, this volume is written to explore the beautiful and elegant connection between mathematics and the physical world. Penrose spends the first third of his book walking us through a seminar in high-level mathematics, but only so he can present modern physics on its own terms, without resorting to analogies or simplifications (as he explains in his preface, "in modern physics, one cannot avoid facing up to the subtleties of much sophisticated mathematics"). Those who work their way through these initial chapters will find themselves rewarded with a deep and sophisticated tour of the past and present of modern physics. Penrose transcends the constraints of the popular science genre with a unique combination of respect for the complexity of the material and respect for the abilities of his readers. This book sometimes begs comparison with Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and while Penrose's vibrantly challenging volume deserves similar success, it will also likely lie unfinished on as many bookshelves as Hawking's. For those hardy readers willing to invest their time and mental energies, however, there are few books more deserving of the effort. 390 illus. (Feb. 24) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.