Trained as a mathematician, Sir Roger Penrose is better known for his work in cosmology, including his theory of "cosmic censorship", which suggests that no naked singularities other than the Big Bang exist or can exist in the universe.

His contributions to relativity theory have been described as second only to Albert Einstein's, and he has argued extensively that human consciousness is impossible without quantum mechanics.

He is also known for an innovative tiling of the affine plane, now called the Penrose tiling, and for his description of a mechanism to extract energy from a Kerr black hole.

In collaboration with Stephen Hawking he identified the basic distinguishing characteristics of black holes, and shared the 1988 Wolf Prize for Physics.