Frans Michel Penning (12.09.1894—6.03.1953) was a Dutch physicist. He was born in Gorinchem. He graduated from the University of Leiden (1918). In 1918 — 24 he worked at the Physical Institute of the University of Leiden, and in 1924 — 53 at the Philips Laboratories in Eindhoven.
His main research concerned electric discharges in gases and physical electronics. In 1937, independently of others, he discovered the process of ionisation in the collision of a metastable atom with an atom of another kind whose ionisation potential is lower than the excitation potential of the metastable atom (the Penning process). He was the first to describe (1937) the magnetic discharge gauge (the Penning gauge). He made a thorough study of the optogalvanic effect.