Roger Penrose (born 8.03.1931) is an English theoretical physicist and a Fellow of the Royal Society (1972). He was born in Colchester. He graduated from the University of London (1952), where he worked in 1956 — 57; in 1957 —60 he was at the University of Cambridge, and in 1961—73 at the University of London (professor from 1966). From 1973 he has been professor at the University of Oxford.
His main work was in general relativity and the theory of gravitation. He studied the global structure of space-time, the properties of causal connections between points of space-time, and the equations of fields with zero rest mass. In 1964—65 he developed an apparatus of mathematical methods for studying the asymptotic properties of space-time near “infinity”, introducing the concept of the conformal transformation of space-time. He gave rigorous definitions of several types of “infinity”. He formulated (1964—73) a number of theorems on the presence of singularities in space-time, in particular, in 1969, together with S. Hawking, he proved the strongest of all the theorems of a certain broad class (the Hawking — Penrose theorem) (in 1965 he proved the first singularity theorem, which led to the appearance of global methods of studying space-time). Using conformal invariance, he gave an interpretation of gravitational radiation by means of a null surface at infinity.
The J. Adams Prize (1966—67), the D. Heineman Prize (1971), the A. Eddington Medal (1975) and others.