A modern bridge between the worlds of physics and mathematics, Sir Roger Penrose was an important contributor to theories on black holes in the 1960s and today is a fixture in the arcane world of recreational mathematics. His particular area of interest is a field of geometry known as tesselation, which involves evenly covering a surface with tiles of predetermined shape. Penrose is famous for his invention, with his father, of the Penrose impossible staircase and the Penrose triangle (also called the "tribar"). He also created what are now known as Penrose tilings.

Penrose was born in Colchester, England on August 8, 1931, the son of a geneticist who was an expert on inherited mental defects. His mother was a medical doctor. Because of his upbringing, Penrose was originally more interested in medicine and biology than mathematics. However, school scheduling conflicts forced him to decide early on that mathematics was...