Discoveries in science can relate to one another in surprising ways, but the renowned mathematician Sir Roger Penrose can offer a personal perspective on just how surprising those connections can be. In his case, the surprises start with something as deceptively simple as tiles on a flat surface. In the 1970s he discovered that certain shapes can be arranged to completely cover a surface without ever repeating their pattern. His insight gained him entry into the exclusive club of scientists to have their discoveries named after them – his patterns were called Penrose tilings.

Then came more surprises. It turned out that Penrose tilings’ special quality of not-quite-repetition (called ‘quasi-symmetry’) exists in nature as well, in the form of actual materials called quasi-crystals. One of the strangest things about quasi-crystals is that it seems like one bit of their pattern can influence another as the crystals grow – even when two parts of the pattern are far away from one another. This could mean that the mysteries of quantum physics are coming into play, and suddenly the ordered world of mosaic tiles could help shed light on the boiling chaos of the smallest particles in the universe. Now that would truly be a surprising connection.

Join us as Prof Sir Roger Penrose delivers this year’s Bragg Lecture, part of a series of public events begun in 1962 in memory of the 20th century father and son team of Ri Directors, Sir William Henry Bragg and Sir William Lawrence Bragg.

Roger Penrose, OM, FRS, born 8 August 1931 in Colchester Essex U.K., obtained his B.Sc. (1952, mathematics) at University College London, and Ph.D. (1957, algebraic geometry) at St John’s College, Cambridge. He held several teaching and research positions in the UK and USA, particularly Birkbeck College London, becoming Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University in 1973, retiring 1998, and Francis and Helen Pentz Distinguished (visiting) Professorship of Physics and Mathematics at Penn State University, USA from 1993.

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