Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive

for rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in the year 2000 and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a mathematician. His love of puzzles helped him to discover how

tiles of certain shapes can be laid out in a pattern which never repeats itself, a profound

achievement of mathematical thought, as well as a useful concept it turns out for the manufacture of non-stick frying pans.

As a follower of Einstein he believes that the universe is unbounded and will grow forever.

And with this comes his firm conviction that the human mind operates in such a way

that it can never be out-smarted by a computer,

an argument he put forward in his most famous book, The Emperor's New Mind.

Science and fun can never be separated, he says.

You've got to enjoy it.

He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Sir Roger Penrose

O.M.

Does it go on being fun, Professor, even at your distinguished heights?

Good heavens, yes.

I mean, it's something one never loses the enjoyment of I think.

But it's something you began doing it.

You've played puzzles of one kind or another all your life.

Well this goes back to my family and upbringing.

My father was professor of human genetics, but he had an interest in mathematics and puzzles.

And there was no dividing line between his serious work and what he did for fun.

He used to make things for his children and for his grandchildren.

...