Wolfgang von Kempelen
Encyclopedia
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and inventor with Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
ancestors.
Life
Kempelen was born in Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg Empire (Pozsony in Hungarian, since 1919 BratislavaBratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
and since 1993 Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
). The Kempelen family settled in Pozsony/Pressburg in 1640. He is supposed to have been of Irish ancestry, but the name Kempelen itself is Hungarian. Kempelen's father, of noble ancestry, was Engelbert Kempelen (1680–1761). Kempelen's mother was Ágnes Mohai.
Kempelen studied law and philosophy in his birthplace, and then in Győr
Gyor
-Climate:-Main sights:The ancient core of the city is Káptalan Hill at the confluence of three rivers: the Danube, Rába and Rábca. Püspökvár, the residence of Győr’s bishops can be easily recognised by its incomplete tower. Győr’s oldest buildings are the 13th-century dwelling tower and the...
, in 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...
and in later Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, but Mathematics and Physics also interested him. He spoke German, Hungarian, Latin, French, Italian, and later also English. He started to work as a clerk in Vienna. He was most famous for his construction of The Turk
The Turk
The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player , was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an...
, a chess
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 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:...
, later revealed to be a 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...
. It was described in an essay 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...
, "Maelzel's Chess-Player". He also created a manually operated speaking machine
Wolfgang von Kempelen's Speaking Machine
Wolfgang von Kempelen's Speaking Machine is a manually-operated speech synthesizer that began development in 1769, by Austro-Hungarian author and inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen...
, which was a genuine pioneering step in experimental phonetics
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
.
He constructed steam-engines, waterpumps, a pontoon bridge at Pozsony (1770), patented a steamturbine (1788/89) for mills, a typewriter for the blind (1772) Vienesse pianist Teresia Paradis, a theatre house in Buda (inaugurated October 25, 1790) (now Budapest) and the famous fountains at Schönbrunn
Schönbrunn
Schönbrunn may refer to:*Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria*Schönbrunn , a municipality in Rhein-Neckar , Baden-Württemberg, Germany*Schönbrunn , a village in the Fichtelgebirge mountains in Bavaria, Germany...
Vienna. The reconstruction of the demolished Buda castle was also partly led by him. He was also a talented drawer, etcher and wrote also poems and epigrams. He composed a singspiel, Andromeda and Perseus, performed in Vienna.
He was married twice, and had five children from the second marriage, of whom two survived into adulthood. He died poor because the Austrian emperor withdrew his economic support. Kempelen died in Vienna. The Wolfgang von Kempelen Computing Science History Prize was named in his honor.
External links
- Angéla Imre: On the personality of Wolfgang von Kempelen, in: Grazer Linguistische Studien 63 (2004), pp. 61–64
- Wolfgang von Kempelen on the Web
- Wolfgang von Kempelen's speaking machine and its successors
- The Chess-playing Turk