No strings attached

YOU’D have thought that Roger Penrose would be pleased to have his work immortalised in an Oscar-nominated film. Apparently not. After friends told him about his book’s cameo in Happy Go Lucky, Penrose sat down to watch it. He didn’t have to wait long: his book appears in the opening sequence. The lead character is browsing in a bookshop. She pulls Penrose’s Road to Reality from a shelf, takes a look at the title and, putting it straight back, says, “Oh, we don’t want to go there!”

He is evidently disappointed by the treatment as, just for …