Penrose stairs
The Penrose Staircase , also known as the Impossible Staircase , is a so-called " impossible figure " discovered and published in 1958 by the British mathematician Lionel Penrose and his son Roger Penrose . It is a variation of the Penrose Triangle and is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional staircase with a closed interior that runs back into itself, creating an illusion that it leads up / down infinitely. It is therefore physically impossible and only a perception illusion.
In the article Impossible objects: A special type of visual illusion from 1958, images of this staircase and other impossible figures, e.g. B. the Penrose triangle. A copy of the article sent by Roger Penrose to the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher inspired him to make several perspective woodcuts with impossible objects.
Trivia
- In the film Inception (2010) you can see some protagonists walking on the stairs of Penrose.
See also
literature
- Diana Deutsch: The Paradox of Pitch Circularity . In: Acoustics Today . 6, No. 3, July 2010, pp. 8-14. doi : 10.1121 / 1.3488670 . Retrieved April 8, 2012.
- Bruno Ernst: The Eye Beguiled: Optical illusions . Benedikt Taschen, 1992, ISBN 3-8228-9637-3 .
- Fernand Hallyn (Ed.): Metaphor and Analogy in the Sciences . Springer, 2000, ISBN 0-7923-6560-7 (accessed April 8, 2012).
- IllusionWorks: Impossible Staircase . 1997. Retrieved April 8, 2012.