P enrose is passionate when criticizing string theory. The epilogue is reserved for some of Penrose’s personal thoughts on theoretical physics. In the third chapter, “Fantasy,” he argues against inflationary theories in cosmology, offering in its place his own theory of cyclic conformal cosmology.
In the second chapter, “Faith,” Penrose questions the near-religious devotion to quantum mechanics of most physicists, arguing that gravitational effects must be included in any picture of the quantum world. Penrose views string theory in particular as fundamentally wrong, but, as he notes, it has monopolized the attention, funding, and students of a generation. The first chapter, “Fashion,” introduces particle physics. The book is organized into four chapters and an epilogue. 1 In Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, Penrose considers some recent developments in theoretical physics, appearing both as a stodgy conservative, reacting against flights of mathematical fantasy by string theorists, and as a maverick, with idiosyncratic ideas about quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology. He is also known for his argument that human consciousness is non-algorithmic. R oger Penrose is well known for the Moore–Penrose pseudoinverse, the Penrose diagram, the Penrose–Rindler books on spinors and space-time, and the Penrose tile. Princeton University Press, 520 pp., USD$29.95. Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe