Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Penrose Connections


Two years ago I was granted a sabbatical to study the history of mathematics in northern Europe from the Renaissance to the present, and I kept a blog at this link about that trip.  Two months ago opportunity came up to revisit one of the locations I had spent time in on sabbatical, the amazing city of Edinburgh.

Even though I was there "just for fun" this time, I couldn't help but look into some of the things related to math that I had missed initially.  One mathematician I'm quite interested in is Roger Penrose whose "impossible shapes" made it into the movie Inception.

Penrose's mathematical work takes inspiration from many places, including the world of art.  He collaborated with artist M. C. Escher, and he had an uncle who was an artist and a collector of surrealist art.  This uncle was Roland Penrose, and his collection is housed at "Modern Two" in Edinburgh.  The rest of this blog consists of photographs I took in the Roland Penrose Gallery of "Modern Two."  They may give a sense of one influence in the life of mathematician Roger Penrose.




Maternity by Miro
Never Again by Tanguy
Magritte
The Black Flag by Magritte
Untitled by Roland Penrose
The Joy of Living by Ernst
Hat in Hand, Hat on Head by Ernst
By Roland Penrose