The Impossible Man

‘Patchen Barss shows in his beautifully composed and revealing biography The Impossible Man [that] Penrose’s exceptional talent for solving the hidden patterns and puzzles in the universe has long contrasted with his struggle to fit into the world of people… Barss, in addition to adeptly explaining complex concepts such as the singularity theorem, makes skilful and sensitive use of Penrose’s archive’ - Financial Times‘A primer to the Penrose understanding of the cosmos, and a remarkable study of the lengths one man has gone to avoid understanding himself.’ - Daily Telegraph ‘This biography depicts Sir Roger in multiple dimensions; only a writer as psychologically astute as Barss could show us an impossible man in full.’ - New York Times ‘One day in 1965 Roger Penrose is crossing a London street and suddenly his imagination is working in four dimensions. The result is an insight that transforms Einstein’s relativity theorem. Patchen Barss writes lyrically about this scientific quest, but he also explores the frail human side of Penrose’s journey. The result is a pageturner reminiscent of James Gleick’s Genius, the best-selling biography of Richard Feynman. The Impossible Man is a stunning achievement.’ - Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prizewinning biographer and co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer-the inspiration of Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer

Patchen Barss is a Toronto-based science journalist who has contributed to the BBC, Nautilus Magazine, Scientific American, and the Discovery Channel (Canada), as well as to many science and natural history museums. His previous books include The Erotic Engine: How Pornography has Powered Mass Communication, from Gutenberg to Google, and Flow Spin Grow: Looking for Patterns in Nature.