Extra Time: Professor Sir Roger Penrose in conversation with Andrew Hodges - part two

In the second session, the emphasis shifts to the recent developments in Roger Penrose's thought. He gives a very clear outline of his argument for Conformal Cyclic Cosmology as the correct description of the Big Bang. However, the conversation turns once again to the precursors of these ideas in the 1950s, with new anecdotes about Dirac and the origin of Roger Penrose’s geometrical innovations. Bringing the discussion up to the present moment, Roger Penrose describes the impact of recent observations of primordial magnetic fields and also addresses the significance of his own predictions for the form of dark matter.

In a closing segment, the discussion turns to the current discoveries in neurology and biophysics relevant to Roger Penrose’s theory of microtubules as advanced in Shadows of the Mind. The discussion ends tantalisingly with renewed speculation on the foundations of quantum mechanics and its relation to general relativity. Non-experts will relish Sir Roger Penrose’s comment that 'To me eternity is not such a long time'.