Oliver Penrose | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 June 1929 |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University College, London King's College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Bose–Einstein condensation in liquid helium direction of time kinetics of phase transitions foundations of statistical mechanics |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | Imperial College, London Open University Heriot-Watt University |
| Doctoral advisor | H N V Temperley |
| Website | www |
| Notes | |
He is the brother of Roger Penrose, Jonathan Penrose, and Shirley Hodgson, and son of Lionel Penrose, and grandson of J. Doyle Penrose and John Beresford Leathes. He is the nephew of Roland Penrose and cousin of Antony Penrose. | |
Oliver Penrose FRS FRSE (born 6 June 1929) is a British theoretical physicist.[1]
He is the son of the scientist Lionel Penrose and brother of the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, chess Grandmaster Jonathan Penrose, and geneticist Shirley Hodgson.[2][3] He was associated with the Open University for seventeen years and was a Professor of Mathematics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh from 1986 until his retirement in 1994. He has the title of Professor Emeritus at Heriot-Watt, and remains active in research there. His topics of interest include statistical mechanics,[4] phase transitions in metals and the physical chemistry of surfactants. His concept of off-diagonal long-range order is important to the present understanding of superfluids and superconductors. Other more abstract topics in which he has worked include understanding the physical basis for the direction of time and interpretations of quantum mechanics.[5][6]