The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius (starred review)
Patchen Barss. Basic, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-1-5416-0366-0
Science journalist Barss (The Erotic Engine) presents a penetrating, warts and all biography of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose. A socially awkward kid from an unaffectionate family, Penrose had a meager social life that he compensated for by focusing his “psychic energies” on developing his intellect. Covering the milestones of Penrose’s career, Barss recounts how, in his 30s, he upended theoretical physics in 1965 with his singularity theorem, which proved general relativity is incomplete because it can’t account for the infinite density found inside black holes, and invented twistor theory, a conceptualization of space-time that he believes might reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. Barss’s sensitive handling of Penrose’s tumultuous personal life puts this a notch above other “great minds” biographies. For example, Barss writes that Penrose, like his father before him, “placed his work ahead of all other concerns,” expressing indifference toward his romantic partners and children, and believing his single-minded focus on physics was an “inevitable and necessary” condition of his genius. Drawing on extensive interviews with Penrose, Barss balances reverence for his subject’s “rare capacity to… think in four dimensions” against an unsparing recognition that he “would have been no less a physicist if he had… made more room for the people who loved, understood, and supported him.” The result is a haunting portrait of a brilliant scientist unwilling to confront his personal shortcomings. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency. (Nov.)