Lionel Penrose facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lionel Penrose
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| Born |
Lionel Sharples Penrose
11 June 1898 London, UK
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| Died | 12 May 1972 (aged 73) London, UK
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| Alma mater | St John's College, Cambridge University of Vienna King's College London |
| Known for | Penrose triangle Penrose method Penrose stairs Penrose's Law Penrose square root law Penrose–Banzhaf index |
| Spouse(s) |
Margaret Leathes
(m. 1928) |
| Children | Oliver Penrose Roger Penrose Jonathan Penrose Shirley Hodgson |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society Lasker Award James Spence Medal 1964. |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Genetics |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge University College London |
Lionel Sharples Penrose (born June 11, 1898 – died May 12, 1972) was an English scientist. He was a psychiatrist (a doctor who treats mental health), a geneticist (someone who studies genes), and a paediatrician (a children's doctor). He also studied mathematics and chess.
Penrose is famous for his important work on the genetics of intellectual disability. He was a professor at University College London. First, he was the Galton professor of eugenics from 1945 to 1963. Then, he changed his title to professor of human genetics from 1963 to 1965. He later became an emeritus professor, which means he retired but kept his title.
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Early Life and Education
Lionel Penrose grew up in England. He went to the Downs School and then to the Quaker Leighton Park School. Quakers are a religious group known for their peaceful beliefs.
During the First World War, Penrose was a conscientious objector. This means he refused to fight because of his beliefs. Instead, he helped people by serving with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in France.
After the war, he studied at St John's College, Cambridge. He earned a top degree in moral sciences. He then spent a year studying psychology at the University of Vienna in Austria. In 1928, he became a doctor after training at St Thomas' Hospital. He earned his advanced medical degree in 1930.
Discoveries and Research
Penrose did a lot of research to understand how genes affect people. He studied conditions like schizophrenia. He also created special intelligence tests that did not use words. These tests are still used today.
In the 1930s, he was one of the first to study a rare genetic condition called phenylketonuria. This condition affects how the body breaks down certain foods.
Studying Intellectual Disability
One of Penrose's most important projects was the "Colchester Survey" in 1938. He worked with the Medical Research Council on this study. It was one of the first serious attempts to understand the genetics of intellectual disability.
He found that severe intellectual disability often appeared in families where other relatives were not affected. However, mild intellectual disability tended to run in families. Relatives of those with mild disability often had mild or borderline disability too.
Penrose identified many genetic and chromosomal causes of intellectual disability. He wrote a book about his findings called The Biology of Mental Defect in 1949.
Changing the Focus of Genetics
After World War II, Penrose became a key figure in medical genetics in Britain. From 1945 to 1965, he worked at the Galton Laboratory at University College London.
His first job title there was "Professor of Eugenics." Eugenics was a field that aimed to "improve" the human race through controlled breeding. However, Penrose did not like this name. He felt it was linked to harmful ideas about "racial purification."
In 1963, he successfully changed his title to "Professor of Human Genetics." This showed his focus on understanding human genes for health, not for controversial social policies.
Penrose's Ideas on Voting Power
Penrose also developed a method for fair voting. It's called the Penrose method. This method helps decide how many votes each country should have in a global assembly. It's based on the idea that a voter's power decreases as the voting group gets larger. This is known as the Penrose square root law.
Research on Down Syndrome
Penrose was very interested in different areas of biology. These included fingerprints, population studies (demography), and cytogenetics (the study of chromosomes). His research often focused on the causes of intellectual disability, especially Down syndrome.
He did a lot of research on Down syndrome. In 1963, he shared his important findings. For his contributions to understanding the causes of intellectual disability, he received the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation Award.
Awards and Honours
Lionel Penrose received many awards for his scientific work.
In 1960, he won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. This award recognized his wide-ranging studies in human genetics. The award mentioned his work on hereditary diseases, mathematical genetics, and how genes are linked. It also noted his studies on how radiation can affect genes. Most recently, the award highlighted his work on chromosome problems linked to birth defects, especially Down syndrome.
In 1964, he was given the James Spence Medal by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. This medal recognized his major contributions to human genetics and his extensive research into Down syndrome and intellectual disability.
Family Life
Lionel Penrose came from a talented family. His father was J. Doyle Penrose, and his mother was Elisabeth Josephine. His brother was Sir Roland Penrose, both famous British artists.
In 1928, Lionel Penrose married Margaret Leathes. They had four children, all of whom became successful in their own fields:
- Oliver Penrose (born 1929) is a physicist.
- Sir Roger Penrose (born 1931) is a mathematical physicist and mathematician. Lionel and Roger even wrote papers together about the Penrose triangle, a famous impossible shape. Roger later shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020.
- Jonathan Penrose (1933–2021) was a chess grandmaster and psychologist.
- Shirley Hodgson (born 1945) is a geneticist, just like her father.
After Lionel Penrose passed away, his wife Margaret married mathematician Max Newman. Margaret died in 1989.
