Scientists / Open questions
Roger Penrose
General relativity; black holes; mathematical physics
2020 Nobel Prize in Physics
6 questions
Physical interpretation and fundamental significance of the absolutely conserved Newman-Penrose constants for zero rest-mass fields in asymptotically flat space-time
The nature and observability of the singularities predicted by the Hawking–Penrose singularity theorem: cosmic censorship, singularity structure, and robustness of the hypotheses
Penrose's twistorial quasi-local mass: the natural Hermitian norm and reality structure on 2-surface twistor space, with positivity and angular-momentum interpretation
Rigorous H-space construction beyond the calm hypothesis: existence, metric well-definedness, and asymptotic geometry of the good-cut solution space
Exton-Newman-Penrose selection rules in the coupled Einstein-Maxwell theory: supertranslation invariance and well-definedness of the modified conserved quantities, and attainability of stationary-to-stationary electrovac transitions
Quantitative prediction and statistically decisive detection of Hawking points in the cosmic microwave background