page_title: Wolfgang von Kempelen
section_title: Inventions
hierarchical_section_title: Wolfgang von Kempelen / Inventions
caption_attribution_description: English: reconstruction of Kempelen's speaking machine Čeština: rekunstrukce Kempelenova mluvícího stroje
context_page_description: Wolfgang von Kempelen was a Hungarian author and inventor. He is known for his chess-playing "automaton" hoax, The Turk, and for his speaking machine.
context_section_description: Von Kempelen was most famous for his construction of The Turk, a chess-playing automaton presented to Maria Theresa of Austria in 1769. The machine had a life-sized model of a human head and body, dressed in Turkish robes and wearing a turban. It was seated behind a large wooden box on with a chessboard on the top. The machine could play a game of chess against a human opponent. But it was a trick. There was a person, a skilled chess player, hidden inside the box. The Turk was a really a puppet, worked from below by levers. The Turk won most of the games played during its shows around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years. It played and defeated many people including Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin.
  Kempelen also built a speaking machine.  One of them can still be seen in the Musical Instruments section of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. In 1789, he published a book of his 20 years of speech research, Mechanismus Der Menschlichen Sprache Nebst Beschreibung Seiner Sprechenden Maschine.
  He also built steam-engines, waterpumps, a pontoon bridge in Pressburg (1770), patented a steam turbine for mills (1788/89) and a typewriter for the blind Viennese pianist Maria Theresia von Paradis (1779), and built a theatre house in Buda opened on 25 October 1790 (now Budapest) and the famous fountains at Schönbrunn in Vienna (1780). He was also an artist, wrote poems and epigrams, and composed a singspiel, Andromeda and Perseus, performed in Vienna.
caption: A reconstruction of Kempelen's speaking machine
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "E4100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "E4100v1.0", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:09 02:33:39", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "215", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2047", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3822", "EXIF ExposureTime": "10/91", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:09 02:33:39", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:09 02:33:39", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1712", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1923"}