Lionel Penrose
Encyclopedia
Lionel Sharples Penrose, FRS (11 June 1898 – 12 May 1972) was a British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

, medical geneticist
Geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a researcher or lecturer. Some geneticists perform experiments and analyze data to interpret the inheritance of skills. A geneticist is also a Consultant or...

, mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 and chess theorist
Chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...

, who carried out pioneering work on the genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

 of mental retardation
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...

. He was educated at the Quaker Leighton Park School
Leighton Park School
Leighton Park School is a co-educational Quaker independent school for both day and boarding pupils. It is situated in the large town of Reading in Berkshire, in South East England...

 and St. John's College, Cambridge.

Penrose's "Colchester Survey" of 1938 was the earliest serious attempt to study the genetics of mental retardation. He found that the relatives of patients with severe mental retardation were usually unaffected but some of them were affected with similar severity to the original patient, whereas the relatives of patients with mild mental retardation tended mostly to have mild or borderline disability. Penrose went on to identify and study many of the genetic and chromosomal
Chromosome
A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. It is a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences. Chromosomes also contain DNA-bound proteins, which serve to package the DNA and control its functions.Chromosomes...

 causes of mental retardation (then called mental deficiency). This body of work culminated in the book, The Biology of Mental Defect (Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., London, U.K., 1949).

Penrose was a central figure in British medical genetics following World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. From 1945 to 1965 he occupied the Galton Chair at the Galton Laboratory
Galton Laboratory
The Galton Laboratory, was a laboratory for research into human genetics based at University College London in London, United Kingdom. It was originally established in 1904, and became part of UCL's biology department in 1996....

 at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

. He received a number of awards and honors including the 1960 Albert Lasker Award
Lasker Award
The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker and his wife Mary...

 for Basic Medical Research. The Lasker citation read: "Professor Penrose and his associates have been responsible over the years for studies which touch all aspects of human genetics, include genetic analyses of most of the known hereditary disease
Genetic disorder
A genetic disorder is an illness caused by abnormalities in genes or chromosomes, especially a condition that is present from before birth. Most genetic disorders are quite rare and affect one person in every several thousands or millions....

s, contributions to mathematical genetics, biochemical genetics, the study of gene linkage in man, and theoretical work on the mutagenic effect of ionizing radiations. Most recently their attention has been turned to abnormalities of human chromosomes associated with congenital defects, particularly mongolism (Down syndrome
Down syndrome
Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...

)."

In British psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

, 'Penrose's Law' states that the population size of prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

s and psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...

s are inversely related, although this is generally viewed as something of an oversimplification.

Penrose, a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), was a lead figure in the Medical Association for the Prevention of War in the 1950s.

Penrose developed the Penrose method
Penrose method
The Penrose method is a method devised in 1946 by Professor Lionel Penrose for allocating the voting weights of delegations in decision-making bodies proportional to the square root of the population represented by this delegation...

, a method for apportioning seats in a global assembly based on the square root
Square root
In mathematics, a square root of a number x is a number r such that r2 = x, or, in other words, a number r whose square is x...

 of each nation's population. Such a voting system is based on the voting power of any voter (measured by the Penrose–Banzhaf index) decreasing with the size of the voting body as one over its square root.

Family

Penrose married Margaret Leathes in 1928 and they had four children:
  • Oliver
    Oliver Penrose
    Oliver Penrose FRS, FRSE is a British theoretical physicist.He is the son of the scientist Lionel Penrose, brother of the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, and brother of chess master Jonathan Penrose...

    , born 1929, professor of Mathematics
  • Sir Roger
    Roger Penrose
    Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College...

    , born 1931, mathematical physicist (with whom Lionel co-authored papers on the Penrose triangle
    Penrose triangle
    The Penrose triangle, also known as the Penrose tribar, is an impossible object. It was first created by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd in 1934. The mathematician Roger Penrose independently devised and popularised it in the 1950s, describing it as "impossibility in its purest form". It is...

    )
  • Jonathan
    Jonathan Penrose
    Jonathan Penrose, OBE is an English chess player, emeritus Grandmaster, and International Correspondence Chess Grandmaster who won the British Chess Championship ten times between 1958 and 1969. He is the son of Lionel Penrose, a world famous professor of genetics, and brother of Roger Penrose...

    , born 1933, chess player
  • Shirley, the geneticist S. V. Hodgson

After Penrose's death, Margaret married the mathematician Max Newman
Max Newman
Maxwell Herman Alexander "Max" Newman, FRS was a British mathematician and codebreaker.-Pre–World War II:Max Newman was born Maxwell Neumann in Chelsea, London, England, on 7 February 1897...

 (1897–1984). She died in 1989.

Penrose' Father was James Doyle Penrose, and his brother was Sir Roland Penrose
Roland Penrose
Sir Roland Algernon Penrose CBE was an English artist, historian and poet. He was a major promoter and collector of modern art and an associate of the surrealists in the United Kingdom.- Biography :...

, both British artists.

External links

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