Penrose stairs
The Penrose stairs is an impossible object devised by Roger Penrose and can be seen as a variation on his Penrose triangle. It is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a person could climb them forever and never get any higher. This is clearly impossible in three dimensions; the two-dimensional figure achieves this paradox by distorting perspective.
The best known example of Penrose stairs appears in the lithograph Ascending and Descending by M. C. Escher, where it is incorporated into a monastery where several monks do penance by ascending continuously, but are allowed to turn around and descend occasionally.
In terms of sound, the Shepard tone is a similar illusion.
Referenced By
Impossible object | Impossible objects | List of mathematical topics (P-R) | Roger Penrose | Shepard Tone | Shepard scale
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