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[[Image:kempelen-charcoal.jpg|right|thumb|A [[charcoal]] [[self-portrait]] of Kempelen, with signature.]] |
[[Image:kempelen-charcoal.jpg|right|thumb|A [[charcoal]] [[self-portrait]] of Kempelen, with signature.]] |
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'''Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de Pázmánd''' ({{lang-hu|Kempelen Farkas}}; {{lang-sk|Ján Vlk Kempelen}}) ([[23 January]] [[1734]] – [[26 March]] [[1804]]) was a [[Hungarian people|Hungarian]] [[author]] and [[inventor]] with [[Irish people|Irish]] ancestors. |
'''Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de Pázmánd''' ({{lang-hu|Kempelen Farkas}}; {{lang-sk|Ján Vlk Kempelen}}) ([[23 January]] [[1734]] – [[26 March]] [[1804]]) was a [[German]] (according to some sources also [[Hungarian people|Hungarian]]) [[author]] and [[inventor]] with [[Irish people|Irish]] ancestors. |
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==Life== |
==Life== |
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[[Category:Hungarian inventors]] |
[[Category:Hungarian inventors]] |
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[[Category:Hungarian scientists]] |
[[Category:Hungarian scientists]] |
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[[Category:German inventors]] |
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[[Category:German scientists]] |
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[[Category:Chess automatons]] |
[[Category:Chess automatons]] |
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[[Category:Speech synthesis]] |
[[Category:Speech synthesis]] |
Revision as of 15:52, 27 November 2008
Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de Pázmánd (Hungarian: Kempelen Farkas; Slovak: Ján Vlk Kempelen) (23 January 1734 – 26 March 1804) was a German (according to some sources also Hungarian) author and inventor with Irish ancestors.
Life
Kempelen was from Pressburg (Bratislava), Kingdom of Hungary (presently Slovakia). He studied law and philosophy in his birthtown, and then in Győr, in Vienna and in later Rome, but the mathematics and thy physics also interested him. He started to work as a clerk in Vienna. He was most famous for his construction of The Turk, a chess-playing automaton later revealed to be a hoax. He also created a manually operated speaking machine,[1][2] which was a genuine pioneering step in experimental phonetics.
Kempelen died in Vienna. The Wolfgang von Kempelen Prize for Computing Science History Prize was named in his honor.
Bibliography
- Vajda Pál: Nagy magyar feltalálók. Bp., 1958.; Pap János: Kempelen Farkas.
- Magyar tudóslexikon. Főszerk. Nagy Ferenc. Bp., 1997.
- Homer Dudley and T.H. Tarnoczy. The Speaking Machine of Wolfgang von Kempelen. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, March 1950, Volume 22, Issue 2, pp. 151–166. [1]
- Robert Löhr, "The Chess Machine" (Penguin Press, 2007) is a novel about Kempelen and his chess-playing hoax. Translated from the German by Anthea Bell.
Notes
Regarding personal names: Ritter is a title, translated approximately as Sir (denoting a Knight), not a first or middle name. There is no equivalent female form.
References
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