Penrose steps

After a drawing by Lionel Penrose and Roger Penrose.

Penrose steps pl (plural only)

1. An impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing to be one.
   • 2010 July 8, Inception (Movie), spoken by Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt):

     In a dream, you can cheat architecture into impossible shapes. That lets you create closed loops, like the Penrose Steps. The infinite staircase.

   • 2011 May 13, Amal A. Islim, Walking with the Vain Cattle: In the Womb of Life, the Plant of Miracle Is Ready to Blossom a White Flower, Bloomington: Balboa Press, →ISBN, →OL:

     I'll have my heaven, / Where heaven is love and love is my heaven. / I just have to climb through those Penrose steps! / Till I find sky number seven.

   • 2012 April 16, Rob Coley with Dean Lockwood, Cloud Time, Alresford: Zero Books, →ISBN, →OL, page 100:

     At this book's inception, when we came to, we found ourselves already traipsing around Penrose steps, already reactively enclosed in an unceasing loop.

• Penrose staircase
• Penrose stairs