Nobel Prize for the Briton who proved Einstein was wrong
AN OXFORD professor who proved Albert Einstein wrong has won a Nobel Prize.
Sir Roger Penrose is lesser known than astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who he collaborated with for years.
But he is one of the world’s most prominent theoretical physicists, who in 1965 proved that black holes exist – something Einstein himself did not believe.
Despite his theory of relativity which suggested a compact mass could deform space-time, the German physicist was not convinced black holes were real.
Many scientists were loudly sceptical that there could be a region of space where gravity was so strong not even light could escape being swallowed – and anyone falling in would be instantly crushed to death.
But last year the first photograph of a black hole was taken and now, 55 years after his discovery, Sir Roger, aged 89, shared the Nobel Prize for Physics yesterday.
Sir Roger, who was Professor Hawking’s PhD examiner, said: ‘I think if you’re going to get a Nobel Prize for science, it’s a good thing to get it good and old – before you’re absolutely clapped out.’
The scientist, who was born in Colchester in 1931, is also known for designing an ‘impossible triangle’ whose proportions could never exist and an ‘impossible staircase’, going both up and down, which was used in the famous painting by MC Escher, Ascending and Descending.
But the defining work of his career is having proved that black holes
‘Amazingly original’
hide a ‘singularity’ in which all known laws of nature cease.
Sir Roger, Emeritus Professor at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, shares the Nobel Prize for Physics with Professors Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, who discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our galaxy.
A supermassive black hole is the only known explanation.
On receiving the award, Sir Roger said: ‘It was an extreme honour and great pleasure to hear the news this morning in a slightly unusual way.
‘I had to get out of my shower to hear it.’
The Nobel panel said: ‘His groundbreaking article is still regarded as the most important contribution to the general theory of relativity since Einstein.’ Sir Roger jointly won the Wolf W lf P Prize i i in physics h i with ith Stephen St h Hawking, who died in 2018, for the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems in 1988.
His 1965 theory of ‘ trapped surfaces’ showed how even the strangest of shapes could direct all light to their centre, explaining how imploding dying stars could become black holes.
Professor Martin Rees, astronomer and fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, said: ‘ Sir Roger Penrose is amazingly original and inventive, and has contributed creative insights for more than 60 years.
‘There would, I think, be a consensus that Penrose and Hawking are the two individuals who have done more than anyone else since Einstein to deepen our knowledge of gravity.’
He added: ‘Sadly, this award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit with Penrose.’