The Turk
Encyclopedia
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
-playing machine
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton
Automaton
An automaton is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot. An alternative spelling, now obsolete, is automation.-Etymology:...
, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an elaborate hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen
Wolfgang von Kempelen
Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de Pázmánd was a Hungarian author and inventor with Irish ancestors.-Life:...
(1734–1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa of Austria
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...
, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour
Knight's tour
The knight's tour is a mathematical problem involving a knight on a chessboard. The knight is placed on the empty board and, moving according to the rules of chess, must visit each square exactly once. A knight's tour is called a closed tour if the knight ends on a square attacking the square from...
, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight
Knight (chess)
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
to occupy every square of a chessboard
Chessboard
A chessboard is the type of checkerboard used in the board game chess, and consists of 64 squares arranged in two alternating colors...
exactly once.
The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion
Magic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
and Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
. Although many had suspected the hidden human operator, the hoax was initially revealed only in the 1820s by the Londoner Robert Willis. The operator(s) within the mechanism during Kempelen's original tour remains a mystery. When the device was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel
Johann Nepomuk Mälzel
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel [or Mälzel] was an inventor, engineer, and showman, best known for manufacturing a metronome and several music automatons, and displaying a fraudulent chess machine.-Life and work:...
, the chess masters who secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier
Johann Baptist Allgaier
Johann Baptist Allgaier was a German-Austrian chess master and theoretician. He was also the author of the first chess handbook in German – Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel .-About his biography:Relatively few details of his life are known...
, Boncourt
Boncourt (chess player)
Boncourt was one of the leading chess player in France in the years between 1820 and 1840.-Short biography:Although he was one of the leading players of his time, not much is known about his life. His first name remains unknown, and the dates of his birth and death can only be estimated...
, Aaron Alexandre
Aaron Alexandre
Aaron Alexandre was a Jewish German–French–English chess player and writer.Aaron Alexandre, a Bavarian trained as a rabbi, arrived in France in 1793. Encouraged by the French Republic's policy of religious toleration, he became a French citizen. At first, he worked as a German teacher and as...
, William Lewis
William Lewis (chess player)
William Lewis was an English chess player and author, nowadays best known for the Lewis Countergambit and for being the first player ever to be described as a Grandmaster of the game..-Life and works:...
, Jacques Mouret
Jacques François Mouret
Jacques François Mouret was a French chess master of the early 19th century and one of the operators of The Turk.-Brief Biography:...
, and William Schlumberger
William Schlumberger
William Schlumberger was a European chess master. He is known to have taughtPierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant to play chess and as the operator of The Turk, a chess-playing machine which purported to be an automaton. It was Bavarian musician and showman Johann Nepomuk Mälzel who hired him to...
.
Construction
Schönbrunn Palace
Schönbrunn Palace is a former imperial 1,441-room Rococo summer residence in Vienna, Austria. One of the most important cultural monuments in the country, since the 1960s it has been one of the major tourist attractions in Vienna...
, where François Pelletier
François Pelletier
François Pelletier was a French illusionist, famed in his time for his use of magnets as an entertainment basis for his act. His reputation was such that he was invited to perform at the court of Maria Theresa of Austria at Schönbrunn Palace in 1769...
was performing an illusion act. An exchange following the performance resulted in Kempelen promising to return to the Palace with an invention that would top the illusions.
Mannequin
A mannequin is an often articulated doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, and others especially to display or fit clothing...
of a human head and torso, with a black beard and grey eyes, and dressed in Turkish robes
Ottoman clothing
Ottoman clothing is the style and design of clothing worn by the Ottoman Turks.-Ottoman period:While the Palace and its court displayed showy clothes, the common people were only concerned with covering themselves. The administrators occasionally brought about legal regulations on clothes...
and a turban
Turban
In English, Turban refers to several types of headwear popularly worn in the Middle East, North Africa, Punjab, Jamaica and Southwest Asia. A commonly used synonym is Pagri, the Indian word for turban.-Styles:...
– "the traditional costume", according to journalist and author Tom Standage
Tom Standage
Tom Standage is a journalist and author from England. A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked as a science and technology writer for The Guardian, as the business editor at The Economist, has been published in Wired, The New York Times, and The Daily Telegraph, and has published five books,...
, "of an oriental
The Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
sorcerer
Magician (fantasy)
A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, enchanter, enchantress, thaumaturge or a person known under one of many other possible terms is someone who uses or practices magic that derives from supernatural or occult sources...
." Its left arm held a long Turkish smoking pipe while at rest, while its right lay on the top of a large cabinet that measured about three-and-a-half feet (110 cm) long, two feet (60 cm) wide, and two-and-a-half feet (75 cm) high. Placed on the top of the cabinet was a chessboard, which measured eighteen inches square. The front of the cabinet consisted of three doors, an opening, and a drawer, which could be opened to reveal a red and white ivory
Ivory
Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...
chess set.
Clockwork
A clockwork is the inner workings of either a mechanical clock or a device that operates in a similar fashion. Specifically, the term refers to a mechanical device utilizing a complex series of gears....
. The section was designed so that if the back doors of the cabinet were open at the same time one could see through the machine. The other side of the cabinet did not house machinery; instead it contained a red cushion and some removable parts, as well as brass
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
structures. This area was also designed to provide a clear line of vision through the machine. Underneath the robes of the Turkish model, two other doors were hidden. These also exposed clockwork machinery and provided a similarly unobstructed view through the machine. The design allowed the presenter of the machine to open every available door to the public, to maintain the illusion.
Neither the clockwork visible to the left side of the machine nor the drawer that housed the chess set extended fully to the rear of the cabinet; they instead went only one third of the way. A sliding seat was also installed, allowing the director inside to slide from place to place and thus evade observation as the presenter opened various doors. The sliding of the seat caused dummy machinery to slide into its place to further conceal the person inside the cabinet.
The chessboard on the top of the cabinet was thin enough to allow for a magnet
Magnet
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets.A permanent magnet is an object...
ic linkage. Each piece in the chess set had a small, strong magnet attached to its base, and when they were placed on the board the pieces would attract a magnet attached to a string under their specific places on the board. This allowed the director inside the machine to see which pieces moved where on the chess board. The bottom of the chessboard had corresponding numbers, 1–64, allowing the director to see which places on the board were affected by a player's move. The internal magnets were positioned in a way that outside magnetic forces did not influence them, and Kempelen would often allow a large magnet to sit at the side of the board in an attempt to show that the machine was not influenced by magnetism.
As a further means of misdirection, the Turk came with a small wooden coffin-like box that the presenter would place on the top of the cabinet. While Johann Nepomuk Mälzel
Johann Nepomuk Mälzel
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel [or Mälzel] was an inventor, engineer, and showman, best known for manufacturing a metronome and several music automatons, and displaying a fraudulent chess machine.-Life and work:...
, a later owner of the machine, did not use the box, Kempelen often peered into the box during play, suggesting that the box controlled some aspect of the machine. The box was believed by some to have supernatural power, with Karl Gottlieb von Windisch writing in his 1784 book Inanimate Reason that "[o]ne old lady, in particular, who had not forgotten the tales she had been told in her youth … went and hid herself in a window seat, as distant as she could from the evil spirit, which she firmly believed possessed
Spiritual possession
Spirit possession is a paranormal or supernatural event in which it is said that spirits, gods, demons, animas, extraterrestrials, or other disincarnate or extraterrestrial entities take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in health and behaviour...
the machine."
Perforated hardboard
Perforated hardboard is tempered hardboard which is pre-drilled with evenly spaced holes. The holes are used to accept pegs or hooks to support various items, such as tools in a workshop. Pegboard is a brand name of this product that is often used as a generic term for perforated storage boards...
chess board connected to a pantograph
Pantograph
A pantograph is a mechanical linkage connected in a special manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen...
-style series of levers that controlled the model's left arm. The metal pointer on the pantograph moved over the interior chessboard, and would simultaneously move the arm of the Turk over the chessboard on the cabinet. The range of motion allowed the director to move the Turk's arm up and down, and turning the lever would open and close the Turk's hand, allowing it to grasp the pieces on the board. All of this was made visible to the director by using a simple candle
Candle
A candle is a solid block or cylinder of wax with an embedded wick, which is lit to provide light, and sometimes heat.Today, most candles are made from paraffin. Candles can also be made from beeswax, soy, other plant waxes, and tallow...
, which had a ventilation system through the model. Other parts of the machinery allowed for a clockwork-type sound to be played when the Turk made a move, further adding to the machinery illusion, and for the Turk to make various facial expressions. A voice box was added following the Turk's acquisition by Mälzel, allowing the machine to say "Échec!" (French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
for "check") during matches.
An operator inside the machine also had tools to assist in communicating with the presenter outside. Two brass discs equipped with numbers were positioned opposite each other on the inside and outside of the cabinet. A rod could rotate the discs to the desired number, which acted as a code between the two.
Exhibition
The Turk made its debut in 1770 at Schönbrunn Palace, about six months after Pelletier's act. Kempelen addressed the court, presenting what he had built, and began the demonstration of the machine and its parts. With every showing of the Turk, Kempelen began by opening the doors and drawers of the cabinet, allowing members of the audience to inspect the machine. Following this display, Kempelen would announce that the machine was ready for a challenger.Kempelen would inform the player that the Turk would use the white pieces and have the first move. Between moves the Turk kept its left arm on the cushion. The Turk could nod twice if it threatened its opponent's queen
Queen (chess)
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
, and three times upon placing the king
King (chess)
In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that its escape is not possible . If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be...
in check. If an opponent made an illegal move, the Turk would shake its head, move the piece back and make its own move, thus forcing a forfeit of its opponent's move. Louis Dutens
Louis Dutens
Louis Dutens was a French writer born in Tours, of Protestant parents, who lived most of his life in Britain or in British service on the continent....
, a traveller who observed a showing of the Turk, attempted to trick the machine "by giving the Queen the move of a Knight, but my mechanic opponent was not to be so imposed upon; he took up my Queen and replaced her in the square from which I had moved her." Kempelen made it a point to traverse the room during the match, and invited observers to bring magnets, irons, and lodestone
Lodestone
A lodestone or loadstone is a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite. They are naturally occurring magnets, that attract pieces of iron. Ancient people first discovered the property of magnetism in lodestone...
s to the cabinet to test whether the machine was run by a form of magnetism or weights. The first person to play the Turk was Count Ludwig von Cobenzl
Count Ludwig von Cobenzl
Johann Ludwig Joseph Graf von Cobenzl was a diplomat and politician of the Habsburg Monarchy....
, an Austrian courtier
Courtier
A courtier is a person who is often in attendance at the court of a king or other royal personage. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
at the palace. Along with other challengers that day, he was quickly defeated, with observers of the match stating that the machine played aggressively, and typically beat its opponents within thirty minutes.
Knight's tour
The knight's tour is a mathematical problem involving a knight on a chessboard. The knight is placed on the empty board and, moving according to the rules of chess, must visit each square exactly once. A knight's tour is called a closed tour if the knight ends on a square attacking the square from...
, a famed chess puzzle. The puzzle requires the player to move a knight around a chessboard, touching each square once along the way. While most experienced chess players of the time still struggled with the puzzle, the Turk was capable of completing the tour without any difficulty from any starting point via a pegboard used by the director with a mapping of the puzzle laid out.
The Turk also had the ability to converse with spectators using a letter board. The director, whose identity during the period when Kempelen presented the machine at Schönbrunn Palace is unknown, was able to do this in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French, and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Carl Friedrich Hindenburg
Carl Hindenburg
Carl Friedrich Hindenburg was a German mathematician born in Dresden. His work centered mostly on combinatorics and probability.- External links :...
, a university mathematician, kept a record of the conversations during the Turk's time in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and published it in 1789 as Über den Schachspieler des Herrn von Kempelen und dessen Nachbildung (or On the Chessplayer of Mr. von Kempelen And Its Replica). Topics of questions put to and answered by the Turk included its age, marital status, and its secret workings.
Tour of Europe
Following word of its debut, interest in the machine grew across Europe. Kempelen, however, was more interested in his other projects and avoided exhibiting the Turk, often lying about the machine's repair status to prospective challengers. Von Windisch wrote at one point that Kempelen "refused the entreaties of his friends, and a crowd of curious persons from all countries, the satisfaction of seeing this far-famed machine." In the decade following its debut at Schönbrunn Palace the Turk only played one opponent, Sir Robert Murray KeithRobert Murray Keith
Robert Murray Keith was a British diplomat. He was descended from a younger son of the 2nd Earl Marischal.Keith was minister in Vienna in 1748 and from 1753 Minster-plenipotentary. In 1757, he transferred to St. Petersburg and remained there until October 1762, when the imperial government...
, a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
noble, and Kempelen went as far as dismantling the Turk entirely following the match. Kempelen was quoted as referring to the invention as a "mere bagatelle", as he was not pleased with its popularity and would rather continue work on steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
s and machines that replicated human speech.
In 1781, Kempelen was ordered by Emperor Joseph II
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I...
to reconstruct the Turk and deliver it to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
for a state visit from Grand Duke Paul of Russia
Paul I of Russia
Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...
and his wife. The appearance was so successful that Grand Duke Paul suggested a tour of Europe for the Turk, a request to which Kempelen reluctantly agreed.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in April. A stop at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
preceded an exhibition in Paris, where the Turk lost a match to Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne
Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne
Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne was a French nobleman and member of the powerful House of La Tour d'Auvergne.-Biography:...
, the Duc de Bouillon. Upon arrival in Paris in May 1783 it was displayed to the public and played a variety of opponents, including a lawyer named Mr. Bernard who was a second rank in chess ability. Following the sessions at Versailles, demands increased for a match with François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor , often referred to as André Danican Philidor during his lifetime, was a French composer and chess player. He contributed to the early development of the opéra comique...
, who was considered the best chess player of his time. Moving to the Café de la Régence
Café de la Régence
The Café de la Régence in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there.The Café' masters include, but are not limited to:* Paul Morphy...
, the machine played many of the most skilled players, often losing (e.g. against Bernard and Verdoni), until securing a match with Philidor at the Académie des Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
. While Philidor won his match with the Turk, Philidor's son noted that his father called it "his most fatiguing game of chess ever!" The Turk's final game in Paris was against Benjamin Franklin, who was serving as ambassador to France from the United States. Franklin reportedly enjoyed the game with the Turk and was interested in the machine for the rest of his life, keeping a copy of Philip Thicknesse
Philip Thicknesse
Captain Philip Thicknesse was a British author, eccentric and friend of the artist Thomas Gainsborough.Philip Thicknesse was born in Staffordshire, England, son of John Thicknesse, the Rector of Farthinghoe, Northamptonshire and Joyce Thicknesse and brought up in Farthinghoe. In later life he...
's book The Speaking Figure and the Automaton Chess Player, Exposed and Detected in his personal library.
Following his tour of Paris, Kempelen moved the Turk to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where it was exhibited daily for five shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s. Thicknesse, known in his time as a skeptic
Skepticism
Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
, sought out the Turk in an attempt to expose the inner workings of the machine. While he respected Kempelen as "a very ingenious man", he asserted that the Turk was an elaborate hoax with a small child inside the machine, describing the machine as "a complicated piece of clockwork ... which is nothing more, than one, of many other ingenious devices, to misguide and delude the observers."
After a year in London, Kempelen and the Turk travelled to Leipzig, stopping in various European cities along the way. From Leipzig, it went to Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, where Joseph Friedrich Freiherr von Racknitz
Joseph Friedrich Freiherr von Racknitz
Joseph Friedrich Freiherr von Racknitz was part of the Racknitz family from Steiermark, Germany, a family that originated in 1180 at Castle Perneck...
viewed the Turk and published his findings in Ueber den Schachspieler des Herrn von Kempelen, nebst einer Abbildung und Beschreibung seiner Sprachmachine, along with illustrations showing his beliefs about how the machine operated. It then moved to Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, after which Kempelen is said to have accepted an invitation to the Sanssouci
Sanssouci
Sanssouci is the name of the former summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, near Berlin. It is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it too is...
palace in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
of Frederick the Great
Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
, King of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
. The story goes that Frederick enjoyed the Turk so much that he paid a large sum of money to Kempelen in exchange for the Turk's secrets. Frederick never gave the secret away, but was reportedly disappointed to learn how the machine worked. (This story is almost certainly apocryphal; there is no evidence of the Turk's encounter with Frederick, the first mention of which comes in the early 19th century, by which time the Turk was also incorrectly said to have played against George III of England.) It seems most likely that the machine stayed dormant at Schönbrunn Palace for over two decades, although Kempelen attempted unsuccessfully to sell it in his final years. Kempelen died at age 70 on 26 March 1804.
Mälzel and the machine
Following the death of Kempelen, the Turk remained un-exhibited until some time before 1804 when Kempelen's son decided to sell it to Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a BavariaBavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n musician with an interest in various machines and devices. Mälzel, whose successes included patenting a form of metronome
Metronome
A metronome is any device that produces regular, metrical ticks — settable in beats per minute. These ticks represent a fixed, regular aural pulse; some metronomes also include synchronized visual motion...
, had tried to purchase the Turk once before, prior to Kempelen's death. The original attempt had failed, owing to Kempelen's asking price of 20,000 franc
Franc
The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...
s; Kempelen's son sold the machine to Mälzel for half this sum.
Upon acquiring the Turk, Mälzel had to learn its secrets and make some repairs to get it back in working order. His stated goal was to make explaining the Turk a greater challenge. While the completion of this goal took ten years, the Turk still made appearances, most notably with Napoleon Bonaparte.
In 1809, Napoleon I of France
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
arrived at Schönbrunn Palace
Schönbrunn Palace
Schönbrunn Palace is a former imperial 1,441-room Rococo summer residence in Vienna, Austria. One of the most important cultural monuments in the country, since the 1960s it has been one of the major tourist attractions in Vienna...
to play the Turk. According to an eyewitness report, Mälzel took responsibility for the construction of the machine while preparing the game, and the Turk (Johann Baptist Allgaier
Johann Baptist Allgaier
Johann Baptist Allgaier was a German-Austrian chess master and theoretician. He was also the author of the first chess handbook in German – Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel .-About his biography:Relatively few details of his life are known...
) saluted Napoleon prior to the start of the match. The details of the match have been published over the years in numerous accounts, many of them contradictory. According to Bradley Ewart, it is believed that the Turk sat at its cabinet, and Napoleon sat at a separate chess table. Napoleon's table was in a roped-off area and he was not allowed to cross into the Turk's area, with Mälzel crossing back and forth to make each player's move and allowing a clear view for the spectators. In a surprise move, Napoleon took the first turn instead of allowing the Turk to make the first move, as was usual; but Mälzel allowed the game to continue. Shortly thereafter, Napoleon attempted an illegal move. Upon noticing the move, the Turk returned the piece to its original spot and continued the game. Napoleon attempted the illegal move a second time, and the Turk responded by removing the piece from the board entirely and taking its turn. Napoleon then attempted the move a third time, the Turk responding with a sweep of its arm, knocking all the pieces off the board. Napoleon was reportedly amused, and then played a real game with the machine, completing nineteen moves before tipping over his king in surrender. Alternate versions of the story include Napoleon being unhappy about losing to the machine, playing the machine at a later time, playing one match with a magnet on the board, and playing a match with a shawl
Shawl
A shawl is a simple item of clothing, loosely worn over the shoulders, upper body and arms, and sometimes also over the head. It is usually a rectangular or square piece of cloth, that is often folded to make a triangle but can also be triangular in shape...
around the head and body of the Turk in an attempt to obscure its vision.
In 1811, Mälzel brought the Turk to Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
for a performance with Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène Rose de Beauharnais, Prince Français, Prince of Venice, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy, Hereditary Grand Duke of Frankfurt, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg and 1st Prince of Eichstätt ad personam was the first child and only son of Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais and Joséphine Tascher de la...
, the Prince of Venice and Viceroy of Italy. Beauharnais enjoyed the machine so much that he offered to purchase it from Mälzel. After some serious bargaining, Beauharnais acquired the Turk for 30,000 francs – three times what Mälzel had paid – and kept it for four years. In 1815, Mälzel returned to Beauharnais in Munich and asked to buy the Turk back. Two versions of how much he had to pay exist, eventually working out an agreement. One version appeared in the France Letter Palamede.
"The writer in the Palamede makes the result a kind of partnership in an exhibitiontour – the title of the Automaton was to remain in the princely owner, and Maelzel was to pay the interest of the original cost as his partner's fair proportion of the profits. But another account – current, I believe, at Munich – makes the transaction to have been a sale: Maelzel bought back the Automaton for the same thirty thousand francs, and was to pay for it out of the profits of his exhibitions – " Provided, nevertheless," that Maelzel was not to leave the Continent to give such exhibitions. The latter account I believe to be the more correct one."
The Book of the first American Chess Congress, page 427,Online The complete story does not make a lot of sense since Mälzel visited Paris again, and he also could import his "Conflagration of Moscow"."Mr. Maelzel, who had already experienced some regret at parting with his protegi, requested the favour to be again reinstated in the charge, promising to pay Eugene (he interest of the thirty thousand francs Mr. M. hod pocketed. This proposition was graciously conceded by the gallant Beauharnois, and Maelzel thus had the satisfaction of finding he had made a tolerably good bargain, getting literally the money for nothing at all!
Leaving Bavaria with the Automaton, Maelzel was once more en ramie, as travelling showman of the wooden genius. Other automata were adopted into the family, and a handsome income was realised by their ingenious proprietor. Himself an inferior player, he called the assistance of first-rale talent to the field as his ally. On limits compel us to skip over some interval of time here, during which M. Boncourt (we believe) was Slaelzel's chef in Paris, where the machine was received with all its former favour; and we take up the subject in 1819, when Maelzel again appeared with the Chess Automaton in London." Fraser's magazine for town and country, Band 19, James Fraser, 1839 Online
In 1819, Mälzel took the Turk on a tour of the United Kingdom. There were several new developments in the act, such as allowing the opponent the first move and eliminating the king's bishop's pawn
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...
from the Turk's pieces. This pawn handicap created further interest in the Turk, and spawned a book by W. J. Hunneman chronicling the matches played with this handicap. Despite the handicap, the Turk (operated by Mouret
Jacques François Mouret
Jacques François Mouret was a French chess master of the early 19th century and one of the operators of The Turk.-Brief Biography:...
at the time) ended up with forty-five victories, three losses, and two stalemate
Stalemate
Stalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....
s.
Mälzel in America
The appearances of the Turk were profitable for Mälzel, and he continued by taking it and his other machines to the United States. In 1826, he opened an exhibition in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that slowly grew in popularity, giving rise to many newspaper stories and anonymous threats of exposure of the secret. Mälzel's problem was finding a proper director for the machine, having trained an unknown woman in France before coming to the United States. He ended up recalling a former director, William Schlumberger
William Schlumberger
William Schlumberger was a European chess master. He is known to have taughtPierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant to play chess and as the operator of The Turk, a chess-playing machine which purported to be an automaton. It was Bavarian musician and showman Johann Nepomuk Mälzel who hired him to...
, from Elsass in Europe to come to America and work for him again once Mälzel was able to provide the money for Schlumberger's transport.
Upon Schlumberger's arrival, the Turk debuted in Boston, Mälzel spinning
Spin (public relations)
In public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure...
a story that the New York chess players could not handle full games and that the Boston players were much better opponents. This was a success for many weeks, and the tour moved to Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
for three months. Following Philadelphia, the Turk moved to Baltimore, where it played for a number of months, including losing a match against Charles Carroll
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a wealthy Maryland planter and an early advocate of independence from Great Britain. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later as United States Senator for Maryland...
, a signer of the Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
. The exhibition in Baltimore brought news that two brothers had constructed their own machine, the Walker Chess-player
Walker Chess-player
The Walker Chess-player was a chess-playing "machine" created by the Walker Brothers of Baltimore, Maryland. The machine was produced in the 1820s to compete with The Turk, a world famous chess "machine"...
. Mälzel viewed the competing machine and attempted to buy it, but the offer was declined and the duplicate machine toured for a number of years, never receiving the fame that Mälzel's machine did and eventually falling into obscurity.
Mälzel continued with exhibitions around the United States until 1828, when he took some time off and visited Europe, returning in 1829. Throughout the 1830s, he continued to tour the United States, exhibiting the machine as far west as the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
and visiting Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. In Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, the Turk was observed by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, who was writing for the Southern Literary Messenger
Southern Literary Messenger
The Southern Literary Messenger was a periodical published in Richmond, Virginia, from 1834 until June 1864. Each issue carried a subtitle of "Devoted to Every Department of Literature and the Fine Arts" or some variation and included poetry, fiction, non-fiction, reviews, and historical notes...
. Poe's essay "Maelzel's Chess Player
Maelzel's Chess Player
"Maelzel's Chess Player" is an essay by Edgar Allan Poe exposing a fraudulent automaton chess player called The Turk, which had become famous in Europe and the United States and toured widely. The fake automaton was invented by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1769 and was brought to the U.S...
" was published in April 1836 and is the most famous essay on the Turk, even though many of Poe's hypotheses were incorrect (such as that a chess-playing machine must always win).
Mälzel eventually took the Turk on his second tour to Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. In Cuba, Schlumberger died of yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, leaving Mälzel without a director for his machine. Dejected, Mälzel died at sea in 1838 at age 66 during his return trip, leaving his machinery with the ship captain.
Final years and beyond
Upon the return of the ship on which Mälzel died, his various machines, including the Turk, fell into the hands of a friend of Mälzel's, the businessman John Ohl. He attempted to auction off the Turk, but owing to low bidding ultimately bought it himself for $400. Only when Dr. John Kearsley MitchellJohn Kearsley Mitchell
John Kearsley Mitchell was an American physician and writer, born in Shepherdstown, Virginia . He graduated from the Medical College of the University of Pennsylvania in 1819. Before he went to Philadelphia to practice his profession, he made three voyages to the Far East as ship's surgeon...
from Philadelphia, Edgar Allan Poe's personal physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
and an admirer of the Turk, approached Ohl did the Turk change hands again. Mitchell formed a restoration club and went about the business of repairing the Turk for public appearances, completing the restoration in 1840.
As interest in the Turk outgrew its location, Mitchell and his club chose to donate the machine to the Chinese Museum
Peale Museum
The Peale Museum, also known as the Municipal Museum of Baltimore, was a museum of paintings and natural history, located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It occupied the first building in the Western Hemisphere to be designed and built as a museum. The Peale Museum was created by Charles Willson Peale...
of Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution, as well as establishing one of the first museums....
. While the Turk still occasionally gave performances, it was eventually relegated to the corners of the museum and forgotten about until 5 July 1854, when a fire that started at the National Theater in Philadelphia reached the Museum and destroyed the Turk. Mitchell believed he had heard "through the struggling flames ... the last words of our departed friend, the sternly whispered, oft repeated syllables, 'echec! echec!!
John Gaughan
John Gaughan is a manufacturer of magic acts and equipment for magicians based in Los Angeles, California. His style of work is classic, not based heavily on machinery and technology....
, an American manufacturer of equipment for magicians based in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, spent $US120,000 building his own version of Kempelen's machine over a five-year period from 1984. The machine uses the original chessboard, which was stored separately from the original Turk and was not destroyed in the fire. The first public display of Gaughan's Turk was in November 1989 at a history of magic
Magic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...
conference. The machine was presented much as Kempelen presented the original, except that the opponent was replaced by a computer
Computer chess
Computer chess is computer architecture encompassing hardware and software capable of playing chess autonomously without human guidance. Computer chess acts as solo entertainment , as aids to chess analysis, for computer chess competitions, and as research to provide insights into human...
running a chess programme.
Revealing the secrets
While many books and articles were written during the Turk's life about how it worked, most were inaccurate, drawing incorrect inferences from external observation.In 1827 the Journal of the Franklin Institute did bring one of this often reprinted articles.
It was not until Dr. Silas Mitchell's series of articles for The Chess Monthly
The Chess Monthly
The Chess Monthly was a short-lived chess magazine produced from 1857–1861 in the United States. Edited by professional diplomat and linguistics professor Daniel Willard Fiske, it was co-edited for a time by Paul Morphy. Eugene B. Cook and Sam Loyd edited the chess problems section...
that the secret was fully revealed. Mitchell, son of the final private owner of the Turk, John Kearsley Mitchell, wrote that "no secret was ever kept as the Turk's has been. Guessed at, in part, many times, no one of the several explanations ... ever solved this amusing puzzle." As the Turk was lost to fire at the time of this publication, Silas Mitchell felt that there were "no longer any reasons for concealing from the amateurs of chess, the solution to this ancient enigma."
The most important biographical history about the Chess-player and Mälzel was presented in Containing the Proceedings of that celebrated Assemblage, held in New York, in the Year 1857, published by Daniel Willard Fiske.
In 1859, a letter published in the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch by William F. Kummer, who worked as a director under John Mitchell, revealed another piece of the secret: a candle inside the cabinet. A series of tubes led from the lamp to the turban of the Turk for ventilation. The smoke rising from the turban would be disguised by the smoke coming from the other candelabra
Candelabra
"Candelabra" is the traditional term for a set of multiple decorative candlesticks, each of which often holds a candle on each of multiple arms or branches connected to a column or pedestal...
in the area where the game was played.
Later in 1859, an uncredited article appeared in Littell's Living Age that purported to be the story of the Turk from French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin was a French magician. He is widely considered the father of the modern style of conjuring.-Early life and entrance into conjuring:...
. This was rife with errors ranging from dates of events to a story of a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
officer whose legs were amputated, but ended up being rescued by Kempelen and smuggled back to Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
inside the machine.
A new article about the Turk did not turn up until 1899, when The American Chess Magazine published an account of the Turk's match with Napoleon Bonaparte. The story was basically a review of previous accounts, and a substantive published account would not appear until 1947, when Chess Review
Chess Review
Chess Review is a U.S. chess magazine that was published from January 1933 until October 1969 . Until April 1941 it was called The Chess Review. Published in New York, it began on a schedule of at least ten issues a year but later became a monthly...
published articles by Kenneth Harkness
Kenneth Harkness
Kenneth Harkness was a chess organizer. He is the creator of the Harkness rating system.-Life and career:...
and Jack Straley Battell that amounted to a comprehensive history and description of the Turk, complete with new diagrams that synthesized information from previous publications. Another article written in 1960 for American Heritage
American Heritage (magazine)
American Heritage is a quarterly magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Until 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes. Since that time, Edwin S...
by Ernest Wittenberg provided new diagrams describing how the director sat inside the cabinet.
In Henry A. Davidson's 1945 publication A Short History of Chess, significant weight is given to Poe's essay which erroneously suggested that the player sat inside the Turk figure, rather than on a moving seat inside the cabinet. A similar error would occur in Alex G. Bell's 1978 book, The Machine Plays Chess, which falsely asserted that "the operator was a trained boy (or very small adult) who followed the directions of the chess player who was hidden elsewhere on stage or in the theater…"
More books were published about the Turk toward the end of the 20th century. Along with Bell's book, Charles Michael Carroll's The Great Chess Automaton (1975) focused more on the studies of the Turk. Bradley Ewart's Chess: Man vs. Machine (1980) discussed the Turk as well as other purported chess-playing automatons.
It was not until the creation of Deep Blue, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
's attempt at a computer that could challenge the world's best players, that interest increased again, and two more books were published: Gerald M. Levitt's The Turk, Chess Automaton (2000), and Tom Standage's The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine, published in 2002. The Turk was used as a personification of Deep Blue in the 2003 documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine is a 2003 documentary film by Vikram Jayanti about the match between Garry Kasparov, the highest rated chess player in history and the World Champion for 15 years , and Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer created by IBM...
.
Imitations
Ajeeb
Ajeeb was a chess-playing "automaton", created by Charles Hooper , first presented at the Royal Polytechnical Institute in 1868...
, or "The Egyptian", an American imitation built by Charles Hopper that President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
played in 1885, and Mephisto
Mephisto (automaton)
Mephisto was the name given to a chess-playing "pseudo-automaton" built in 1876. Unlike The Turk and Ajeeb it had no hidden operator, instead being remotely controlled by electromechanical means....
, the self-described "most famous" machine, of which little is known.
The first imitation was made while Mälzel was in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. Created by the Brothers Walker, the "American Chess Player" made its debut in May 1827 in New York. Upon seeing the machine, Mälzel attempted to buy the Walker Brothers' machine for $1000 and even offered them jobs, but they declined. The Walkers did not have the same success as Mälzel, and had to give up some time later.
El Ajedrecista
El Ajedrecista
El Ajedrecista was an automaton built in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo. El Ajedrecista made a public debut during the Paris World Fair of 1914, creating great excitement at the time. It was first widely mentioned in Scientific American as "Torres and His Remarkable Automatic Devices" on...
was built in 1912 by Leonardo Torres y Quevedo
Leonardo Torres y Quevedo
Leonardo Torres y Quevedo was a Spanish civil engineer and mathematician of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.- Biography :Torres was born on 28 December 1852, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, in Santa Cruz de Iguña, Molledo , Spain...
as a chess-playing automaton and made its public debut during the Paris World Fair of 1914. Capable of playing rook and king versus king endgames using electromagnets, it was the first true chess-playing automaton, and a precursor of sorts to Deep Blue.
Automated machines
The Turk was visited in London by Rev. Edmund CartwrightEdmund Cartwright
Edward Cartwright was an English clergyman and inventor of the power loom.- Life and work :...
in 1784. He was so intrigued by the Turk that he would later question whether "it is more difficult to construct a machine that shall weave than one which shall make all the variety of moves required in that complicated game." Cartwright would patent the prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
for a power loom
Power loom
A power loom is a mechanized loom powered by a line shaft. The first power loom was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785. It was refined over the next 47 years until a design by Kenworthy and Bullough, made the operation completely automatic. This was known as the...
within the year. Sir Charles Wheatstone
Charles Wheatstone
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS , was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope , and the Playfair cipher...
, an inventor, saw a later appearance of the Turk while it was owned by Mälzel. He also saw some of Mälzel's speaking machines, and Mälzel later presented a demonstration of speaking machines to a researcher and his teenage son. Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
obtained a copy of a book by Kempelen on speaking machines after being inspired by seeing a similar machine built by Wheatstone; Bell went on to file the first successful patent
Invention of the telephone
The invention of the telephone is the culmination of work done by many individuals, the history of which involves a collection of claims and counterclaims. The development of the modern telephone involved an array of lawsuits founded upon the patent claims of several individuals...
for the telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
.
Stage
A play, The Automaton Chess Player, was presented in New York City in 1845. The advertising, as well as an article that appeared in The Illustrated London News, claimed that the play featured Kempelen's Turk, but was in fact a copy of the Turk created by J. Walker, who had earlier presented the Walker Chess-player.Film and television
Raymond BernardRaymond Bernard
Raymond Bernard was a French filmmaker and related to French playwright father Tristan Bernard and brother to Jean-Jacques Bernard...
's silent feature film Le joueur d'échecs (The Chess Player, France 1927) weaves elements from the real story of the Turk into an adventure tale set in the aftermath of the first of the Partitions of Poland
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
in 1772. The film's "Baron von Kempelen" is a nobleman from Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
who builds automata as a hobby. He helps a dashing young Polish nationalist on the run from the occupying Russians, who also happens to be an expert chess player, by hiding him inside a chess playing automaton called the Turk, closely based on the real Kempelen's model. Just as they are about to escape over the border, the Baron is summoned to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
to present the Turk to the empress Catherine II
Catherine II of Russia
Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...
. In an echo of the Napoleon incident, Catherine attempts to cheat the Turk, who wipes all the pieces from the board in response.
The Turk was the inspiration for the clockwork robots featured in the 2006 Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
episode The Girl in the Fireplace
The Girl in the Fireplace
"The Girl in the Fireplace" is the fourth episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 6 May 2006, and is the only episode in the 2006 series written by Steven Moffat...
, written by Steven Moffatt.
The machine is also referenced in the third episode of the 2008 television drama Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, where a character constructs a chess-playing computer named "The Turk", a possible ancestor or sibling of the sentient computer system Skynet
Skynet (Terminator)
Skynet is the main antagonist in the Terminator franchise—an artificially intelligent system which became self-aware and revolted against its creators...
.
Novels
The Turk has also inspired works of literary fiction. In 1849, just several years before the Turk was destroyed, Edgar Allan Poe published a tale "Von Kempelen and His Discovery". Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
's short story "Moxon's Master
Moxon's Master
"Moxon's Master" is a short story by the late 19th century American author Ambrose Bierce that speculates on the nature of life and intelligence. It describes a chess-playing robot automaton that murders its creator...
", published in 1909, is a morbid tale about a chess-playing automaton that resembles the Turk. In 1938, John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
published The Crooked Hinge
The Crooked Hinge
The Crooked Hinge is a mystery novel by detective novelist John Dickson Carr. It combines a seemingly impossible throat-slashing with elements of witchcraft, an automaton modelled on Maelzel's Chess Player, and the story of the Tichborne Claimant....
, a locked room mystery
Locked room mystery
The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
in his line of Dr. Gideon Fell
Gideon Fell
Doctor Gideon Fell is a fictional character created by John Dickson Carr. He is the protagonist of 23 novels from 1933 through 1967 as well as a few short stories. Carr was an American who lived most of his adult life in England; Dr. Fell is an Englishman who lives in the London suburbs.Dr...
detective novels
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
. Among the puzzles presented included an automaton that operates in a way that is unexplainable to the characters. Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith, to which he converted after marrying into the religion. He is a prolific short story writer and a novelist, and has won many awards in the...
's 1977 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
short story, "The Marvellous Brass Chessplaying Automaton", also features a device very similar to the Turk. F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
Fergus Gwynplaine MacIntyre was a journalist, novelist, poet and illustrator, who lived in New York City and said he had lived in Scotland and Wales. MacIntyre's writings include the science-fiction novel The Woman Between the Worlds and his anthology of verse and humor pieces MacIntyre's...
's 2007 story "The Clockwork Horror" reconstructs Edgar Allan Poe's original encounter with Mälzel's Chess-player, and also establishes (from contemporary advertisements in a Richmond newspaper) precisely when and where this encounter took place. Robert Löhr's 2005 book "Der Schachautomat" (translated in 2007 by Anthea Bell
Anthea Bell
Anthea Bell OBE is a British translator who has translated numerous literary works, especially children's literature, from French, German, Danish and Polish to English...
as "The Secrets of the Chess Machine") is a fictional account of the origins of the mechanical Turk featuring a chess playing dwarf.
Philosophy
Walter BenjaminWalter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
alludes to the Mechanical Turk in the first thesis of his Theses on the Philosophy of History (Über den Begriff der Geschichte), written in 1940:
- "The story is told of an automaton constructed in such a way that it could play a winning game of chess, answering each move of an opponent with a countermove. A puppet in Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent from all sides. Actually, a little hunchback who was an expert chess player sat inside and guided the puppet’s hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophical counterpart to this device. The puppet called ‘historical materialismHistorical materialismHistorical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
’ is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is wizened and has to keep out of sight."
Internet equivalents
In 2005, Amazon.comAmazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
launched the Amazon Mechanical Turk
Amazon Mechanical Turk
The Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services...
. The web-based
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
software application coordinates programming
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
tasks with human intelligence
Human intelligence
Human Intelligence may refer to:* Human intelligence in the species as the property of mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, plan, problem solve, think, comprehend ideas, use languages, and learn....
, inspired in part by the way Kempelen's Turk operated. The program is designed to have humans perform tasks, such as color comparisons, that computers struggle with.
External links
- Clockwork Game:The illustrious career of a Chess-Playing Automation from clockwork-comics.com