Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Life Scientific.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

I'm Jumal Kiele and my mission is to interview the most fascinating and important

scientists alive today and to find out what makes them tick.

My guest today has changed the way we see the universe.

Sir Roger Penrose carried out seminal research on black holes in the Big Bang and he's questioned

the current received wisdom on some of the most important areas in science, such as quantum

mechanics, string theory, artificial intelligence, and where consciousness comes from.

And his ideas in geometry directly influenced the work of the Dutch artist M.C. Esha.

Roger Penrose is one of the world's most lauded mathematical physicist.

He's written a number of popular science books in which he certainly doesn't shy away from

the mathematics.

His best-selling and hugely ambitious tome, The Road to Reality, a complete guide to the

Lord of the Universe, was in fact chosen by yours truly as the one book to take with me to my desert

island when I was a guest on another radio for program in the hope

that I'd finally have the chance to read it all. So you won't be surprised to hear that I'm

looking forward to talking to the man directly about the ideas that have shaped his remarkable life.

In fact, so keen was I to do so that we've come to record this episode from his home in Oxford.

Roger Penrose, welcome to the Life Scientific.

My pleasure. Most people, if they contemplate it at all,

think about the universe in terms of the vastness of space and the multitude of stars and galaxies

stretching out to infinity. So given that you've spent more time

...