In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Patchen Barss chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about his choices while crafting The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius, the biography of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
- Patchen Barss’s painstaking research strategy
- How Patchen grasped complicated information about quantum physics and mathematics
- How he crafted erudite, poetic and propulsive narrative from seemingly incomprehensible scientific information and mathematical equations
- How he balanced Roger Penrose’s scientific, public, personal and inner lives to craft a kaleidoscopic portrait of an extraordinary human being
- How he represented Roger’s relationship difficulties truthfully and with sensitivity and dignity
- How Patchen navigated the perils of writing about a 93-year-old living subject who has a strong autobiographical voice
- Patchen’s response to the question: ‘Who gets to be a genius, and who makes the sacrifices that allow an individual to be one?’
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