The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius Audiobook

The first biography—“a stunning achievement” (Kai Bird, American Prometheus)—of the dazzling and painful life of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose.

When he was six years old, Roger Penrose discovered a sundial in a clearing near his house. Through that machine made of light, shadow, and time, Roger glimpsed a “world behind the world” of transcendently beautiful geometry. It spurred him on a journey to become one of the world’s most influential mathematicians, philosophers, and physicists. 

Penrose would prove the limitations of general relativity, set a new agenda for theoretical physics, and astound colleagues and admirers with the elegance and beauty of his discoveries. However, as Patchen Barss documents in The Impossible Man, success came at a price: He was attuned to the secrets of the universe, but struggled to connect with loved ones, especially the women who care for or worked with him.

Both erudite and poetic, The Impossible Man draws on years of research and interviews, as well as previously unopened archives to present a moving portrait of Penrose the Nobel Prize-winning scientist and Roger the human being. It reveals not just the extraordinary life of Roger Penrose, but asks who gets to be a genius, and who makes the sacrifices that allow one man to be one.

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“Barss uses the skills of a fine novelist to tell the story of one of the true giants of twentieth-century mathematics and physics, Roger Penrose, in a biography that reveals the complex and compelling character of the man alongside the importance of his contributions to geometry, relativity, and a wide range of other fields. The biography that Penrose deserves.”

— David N. Schwartz, author of The Last Man Who Knew Everything