You may have noticed that a joint recipient of the 2020 Noble prize for Physics, 89-year-old Sir Roger Penrose (born 08/08/1931), shares his surname with former British Champion Jonathan Penrose, which is not surprising as they are brothers . . .

and today (7th October 2020) is Dr Jonathan Penrose’s 87th birthday.

Those of us who are old enough, remember Jonathan Penrose (born 07/10/1933) as the nigh irremovable British Chess Champion of our youth. He won the championship each year from 1958 to 1969, except for 1964 (Michael J Haygarth) and 1965 (Peter N Lee) – 10 times in all.

The Nobel Prize was for demonstrating mathematically that the existence of black holes (in space, not on the chessboard) is implied by the General Theory of Relativity.

Roger Penrose appears not to have played much competitive chess, but Jonathan Penrose and another brainy brother, Oliver Penrose (born 06/06/1929), both played from an early age. In the 1945-46 London Boys’ Championship, Oliver Penrose finished 3rd out of 6 in Section A, while Jonathan Penrose finished 3rd out of 6 in Section B.

The three brothers had a somewhat younger sister, Shirley Victoria Penrose (born 02/05/1945, married Humphrey Hodgson in 1971). All four siblings are prominent in their chosen fields of mathematical or theoretical physics, genetics or psychology. Their father, Lionel Sharples Penrose (11/06/1898 – 12/05/1972), was a geneticist and psychiatrist. He played chess for Cambridge University but seems not to have played much competitive chess thereafter, but he was a composer of chess problems! The following problem by Lionel Penrose was first published in The Chess Amateur of March 1917.

Black

White – to move and mate in 2 moves.