"Penrose staircase" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "After a drawing by Lionel Penrose and Roger Penrose.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Penrose staircases",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Penrose staircase (plural Penrose staircases)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Artistic works",
          "orig": "en:Artistic works",
          "parents": [
            "Art",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984 February, Monte Davis, “Profile of Benoit B. Mandelbrot”, in Omni, →ISSN, page 9:",
          "text": "Can you make a fractal equivalent of the “Auditory Penrose Staircase,” the illusion of a steadily descending tone, by zooming in on a fractal as it branches?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Martin Gardner, Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers: ...And the Return of Dr. Matrix, New York: Freeman, →ISBN, →OL:",
          "text": "They are the inventors of the famous \"Penrose staircase\" that goes round and round without getting higher; Escher depicted it in his lithograph \"Ascending and Descending.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Diana Deutsch, “The Paradox of Pitch Circularity”, in Acoustics Today, volume 6, number 3, →DOI, pages 8–14:",
          "text": "This pitch paradox has been used to accompany numerous videos of bouncing balls, stick men, and other objects traversing the Penrose staircase, with each step accompanied by a step along the Shepard scale.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing to be one."
      ],
      "id": "en-Penrose_staircase-en-noun-F1txWXSc",
      "links": [
        [
          "impossible",
          "impossible"
        ],
        [
          "loop",
          "loop"
        ],
        [
          "endlessly",
          "endlessly"
        ],
        [
          "ascend",
          "ascend"
        ],
        [
          "descend",
          "descend"
        ],
        [
          "stairs",
          "stairs"
        ],
        [
          "optical illusion",
          "optical illusion"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "Penrose stairs"
        },
        {
          "word": "Penrose steps"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "Penrose staircase"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "After a drawing by Lionel Penrose and Roger Penrose.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Penrose staircases",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Penrose staircase (plural Penrose staircases)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English eponyms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Artistic works"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1984 February, Monte Davis, “Profile of Benoit B. Mandelbrot”, in Omni, →ISSN, page 9:",
          "text": "Can you make a fractal equivalent of the “Auditory Penrose Staircase,” the illusion of a steadily descending tone, by zooming in on a fractal as it branches?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Martin Gardner, Penrose Tiles to Trapdoor Ciphers: ...And the Return of Dr. Matrix, New York: Freeman, →ISBN, →OL:",
          "text": "They are the inventors of the famous \"Penrose staircase\" that goes round and round without getting higher; Escher depicted it in his lithograph \"Ascending and Descending.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Diana Deutsch, “The Paradox of Pitch Circularity”, in Acoustics Today, volume 6, number 3, →DOI, pages 8–14:",
          "text": "This pitch paradox has been used to accompany numerous videos of bouncing balls, stick men, and other objects traversing the Penrose staircase, with each step accompanied by a step along the Shepard scale.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An impossible loop of endlessly ascending and descending stairs, or an optical illusion appearing to be one."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "impossible",
          "impossible"
        ],
        [
          "loop",
          "loop"
        ],
        [
          "endlessly",
          "endlessly"
        ],
        [
          "ascend",
          "ascend"
        ],
        [
          "descend",
          "descend"
        ],
        [
          "stairs",
          "stairs"
        ],
        [
          "optical illusion",
          "optical illusion"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "Penrose stairs"
    },
    {
      "word": "Penrose steps"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Penrose staircase"
}