Roger Penrose

Assembled from 10 blocks · 2 evidence · 2 related

1. Story
2. British mathematical physicist whose 1965 singularity theorem changed the status of black holes from a suspicious feature of idealised calculations to a generic prediction of general relativity. His innovation was methodological: instead of solving the equations for a specific collapsing configuration, he introduced the notion of a trapped surface and argued globally and topologically, so that the conclusion did not depend on assuming spherical symmetry. He went on to describe the process by which rotational energy can be extracted from a spinning black hole, to propose the cosmic censorship conjecture, and to develop the diagrammatic methods that made causal structure tractable. He was awarded half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics; the other half was shared by Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for the stellar-orbit measurements at the Galactic centre. Not a place.
3. Knowledge
4. Roger Penrose
5. Connections
6. Penrose proves that collapse to a singularity is generic
7. The Nobel Prize in Physics recognises black holes twice over
8. Evidence
9. Establishes that geodesic incompleteness follows generically from the formation of a trapped surface, without an assumption of symmetry. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not consulted in session; no research tool was available. Volume and page are from recall of a canonical citation and must be checked.
10. Awards one half to Roger Penrose for showing black hole formation is a robust prediction of general relativity, and one half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the Galactic centre. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: not consulted in session; WebFetch to www.nobelprize.org was refused by the egress proxy. The award division and date are from recall and must be checked.