Roger Penrose

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1,638 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2025 last heard 3 Nov

Roger Penrose’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 1.

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Developed.

um to some extent independently, uh

I had an argument, but

Which I put forward some I round about the turn of the century, I can't remember exactly when.

And it came up this argument produced a lifetime.

four.

a superposition.

So if you have a body

Take this cup.

Forget about the coffee in it.

Take this cup and imagine it's in superposition of being here and here.

Well, I can tell you that that will have a lifetime of becoming one or the other.

What is that lifetime?

Well I work out if I take two cops copies of the cup right on top of each other, I move one of them away from the other

I ask how much energy that would cost me if I consider only gravity.

So the gravitational force between the particles as I move this away is tiny

But still, huge in other respects.

That energy is a fundamental uncertainty whose reciprocal gives you the lifetime.

So the lifetime for this cup would be absolutely instantaneous.

If it's a molecule.

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