Penrose's contribution is reviewed in https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.5226
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
61–70 of 153 posts
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#62Reminds me on Einstein getting the nobel for only a minor achievement, whilst his big one, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_interpretation is still waiting to be verified. A proper GUT finally.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#63I'm elated that Andrea Ghez won!! She came to talk at my high school in 2007, and sparked a lot of my interest in astrophysics. Highly deserved. Here's something closely related to her research that always blows my mind: A video of stars orbiting Sag A*: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0QRpid5_QU
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#64Such a joy to see Sir Roger Penrose awarded with this honor. One of my favorite contemporary intellectuals. If anyone hasn't seen it, I recommend his recent appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orMtwOz6Db0
I somehow always had the impression that Roger Penrose was a numerical computation guy (Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse).
I did not realize he had this vast of scope of a contributions in physics. Certainly quite impressive.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#65Reminds me on Einstein getting the nobel for only a minor achievement, whilst his big one, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_interpretation is still waiting to be verified. A proper GUT finally.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems go back 55 years to work starting in 1965. No joke. This has be to near a record in time lag between the work the Nobel committee recognized and when that work was first published. Better late than never I guess (but too late for Hawking, as has been mentioned elsewhere..) EDIT - a detailed analysis: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.2012/full...
I've always thought Nobel prizes are awarded based on the winners' works in that particular year so this came as huge surprise. Too late for Hawking indeed, he could've very well been one of the winners today.
There's a huge backlog of people who deserve Nobel prizes. The committee is also conservative, and doesn't want to give out a prize for something that turns out to be wrong. Both factors mean that it takes years from discovery to the awarding of a Nobel prize.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok that explains how space becomes timelike. But I never hear anyone address how time becomes spacelike. In what sense does it become spacelike? Can one move back and forth in time inside the event horizon?
It just becomes like space. You can freely move around it without any issues. It’s no longer time, just as the radial direction is no longer space. How it happens? Normal spacial direction has positive sign. Time has negative. When crossing the horizon the equations become such that t gets a positive sign and the radial direction a negative one. After that they behave as expected.
This reminds me of the games you can play flipping signs in relativistic equations when you make v > c. You can interpret those in a lot of fun ways too.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#68Why do they specify that two of them split only half of the prize, versus just that all three share it? Does anyone care _how much_ of a Nobel prize you have?
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#69Why do they specify that two of them split only half of the prize, versus just that all three share it? Does anyone care _how much_ of a Nobel prize you have?
They are saying that RP's theoretical contributions are equal to the experimental contributions of the other two.
Re: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
#70It's funny when you know of a scientist and their work, but years later you find out what you knew them for isn't what they did best or what they're famous for...
I only knew Penrose from Penrose tilings and as the author of The Emporer's New Mind. Black holes? Who knew.