Sir Roger Penrose

Sir Roger Penrose is one of the most important physicists of our time and his appearance at the Book Festival is one of the most exciting events of the summer. Penrose will be promoting his astonishingly ambitious new book, 'The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe', which aims to explain everything that we currently understand about our universe in a way that is both comprehensive and accessible. The chance to hear him discuss the book, its implications and its controversies, should make for a fascinating listen and is sure to rekindle old childhood curiosities about light-speed, black holes and Lorentzian orthogonality.

Joint winner, along with Stephen Hawking, of the Wolf Award for Physics in 1988, Penrose has made a tremendous impact on the fields of cosmology, general relativity, quantum theory and mathematics. Much of our current thinking on black holes comes from Penrose and he has also written several controversial books on the implications of quantum theory on human consciousness.

Opportunities to meet someone who has done so much to advance human understanding are rare, and Penrose's skill at expressing himself in ways that a layperson can understand make this event unmissable.