Roger Penrose - Collected Quotes

"Yet nature does not always prefer conventional explanations, least of all in astronomy." (Roger Penrose, "Black Holes", Scientific American Vol. 226 (5), 1972)

"A beautiful idea has a much greater chance of being a correct idea than an ugly one." (Roger Penrose, "The Emperor’s New Mind", 1989)

"[…] our present picture of physical reality, particularly in relation to the nature of time, is due for a grand shake up - even greater, perhaps, than that which has already been provided by present-day relativity and quantum mechanics." (Roger Penrose, "The Emperor’s New Mind", 1989)

"People might suppose that a mathematical proof is conceived as a logical progression, where each step follows upon the ones that have preceded it. Yet the conception of a new argument is hardly likely actually to proceed in this way. There is a globality and seemingly vague conceptual content that is necessary in the construction of a mathematical argument; and this can bear little relation to the time that it would seem to take in order fully to appreciate a serially presented proof" (Roger Penrose, "The Emperor’s New Mind", 1989)

"Once you have put more and more of your physical world into a mathematical structure, you realize how profound and mysterious this mathematical structure is. How you can get all these things out of it is very mysterious." (Roger Penrose, "Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists", 1990)

"Aesthetic qualities are important in science, and necessary, I think, for great science." (Roger Penrose)

"Scientists do not invent truth - they discover it." (Roger Penrose)

"Understanding is, after all, what science is all about - and science is a great deal more than mindless computation." (Roger Penrose)