Customer Reviews

The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine

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I forget when or where but, many years ago, I first learned about a chess-playing automaton in the 19th century. In Standage's just published book, I have just learned "the rest of the story." The automaton (named "The Turk") attracted a great deal of attention and generated a great deal of controversy. Benjamin Franklin apparently played a game or two against it. In fact, "The Turk" is reputed to have defeated most of Europe's chess masters during a period which extends from 1770 until 1855. It attracted the attention of countless celebrities (e.g. Napoleon Bonaparte, Edgar Allan Poe, Catherine the Great, and Charles Babbage) and indeed, "The Turk" itself became a celebrity as did its inventor, Wolfgang von Kempelen. Was it truly a technological marvel, not only able to to move chess pieces but to formulate and then follow strategies which prevailed against most of the most skilled players? Or was it a hoax? It would be a disservice both to Standage and to his reader to say much more about this book, except that it is exceptionally well-written and combines the best features of a crackerjack detective story with the skills required of a world-class cultural anthropologist. Standage is a master storyteller; he tells the story of "The Turk" within the context of the Age of Victoria when the Industrial Revolution was well-underway and indeed thriving. Great stuff!

This is a delightful book that takes one cultural artifact (a mechanical chess playing machine that looks like a human being and is dressed in oriental opulence, "The Turk") and follows its entire life, from its conceptualization and manufacture to its final demise in a fire in Philadelphia. The period of the Turk's life lasted 85 years, and the people who somehow met and interacted with it were such luminaries Napoleon, and Charles Babbage (inventor of the first computer, sort of), and P. T. Barnum. Edgar Allan Poe started an entire genre (the short detective story) by writing "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," in part inspired by the mental exercise of trying to figure out how The Turk worked. Silas Wier Mitchell, the famous American Civil War physician and neurologist, actually owned The Turk before donating it to the Chinese museum in which it finally perished. Literally hundreds of Europe's intellectuals, and crowned heads, and glitterati of one sort or another played chess against the famous automaton, and usually (but not always) lost the game. And nobody except the operators knew the secret of the machine.

The Turk was the work of Wolfgang Kempelen, an engineer and an aid to the Austro-Hungarian Empress Maria Theresa, who called him to court so that he could explain to her the magic and the related magnetic games that were being demonstrated by a Frenchman by the name of Pelletier in the various courts of Europe. Maria Theresa, being of a scientific mind herself, wanted a respected official to uncover the trickery (if any) involved in Pelletier's performance. Mr. Kempelen explained each act as it was being performed, and was so unimpressed by the whole show that he boasted that if he had six months of free time he would be able to construct a really impressive automaton that would outclass anything then being shown in Europe. Maria Therese took him up on the challenge, and ordered him to go home, build his marvel in six months, and forget his duties to the state during that period.

Six months passed and in the Spring of 1770 Mr. Kempelen arrived in court with the Turk in tow. It was a life-size wood carving of a man wearing Turkish garb, seated at a table, with only one movable arm (the left)with dexterous fingers, and with a fixed gaze that stared down at a chess board. On the night of the first demonstration, Kempelen wheeled the figure before the audience, opened the various doors of the table, showing an impressive set of elaborate and mysterious clockwork and allowing the audience to look through the various openings, shining a candle for behind, so that they would see they were either empty or full of wheels and cogs, but free of any human being. When he convinced everyone that there was nothing hiding inside the machine, Kempelen invited one of the courtiers to sit at the table and play against the Turk. He used a large key to wind it up, and when he released a lever the Turk moved his head as if scanning the board, and suddenly reached out his arm and moved a piece. The game had began! Every ten moves or so, Kempelen would wind up the mechanism again, giving it the additional energy to proceed with the game. The Turk, of course, won the match that launched his famous career.

The author follows this career carefully and only after the Turk's life was ended does he reveal the method used by Kempelen (and others that owned the automaton). That is fair enough, giving the book the measure of suspense it should have in order to keep the reader excited and able to create his or her theory about how the machine operated and hold it until the end of the book.

The book does not end with the demise of the Turk, but it extends into the realm of the Kasparov - Deep Blue matches of 1996 (Kasparov won) and 1997 (D B won). It is a thoroughly delightful book to get into, and a hard one to put down. Even after the secrets of the machine are revealed, one is left in utter amazement about the Turk and its rambunctious life.

Although a familiarity with chess will help, you don't need to be an enthusiast to enjoy this excellent book. Lovers of magic, mysteries, showmanship, mechanical engineering, computers, game theory, psychology, math and history will all find this a fascinating and engrossing story, as will anyone with a smattering of intellectual curiosity. Standege has created a faithful history that is also a page turner. The tale of The Turk is amazing; for its celebrated encounters with formidable intellects ranging from Napolean to Edgar Allan Poe; for its effect on the fortunes and misfortunes of its inventor and promoters; for its role as an inspirer of modern computing; and also for the sad fact that few people today have heard of the automaton that once enthralled and baffled people in dozens of countries through two centuries. Even more compelling is the book's subtext about credulity and the public's ready willingness to believe what what their eyes show them, even when their brains know that it is not possible.

I had never heard of the Turk before reading a short blurb elsewhere about this book, nor do I play chess, but I was intrigued enough by what I read to order it and am glad I did. A relatively short book with some occasional (in my opinion) awkward writing, it provides a fascinating look at 18th century automata in general as well as a detailed history of the Turk. What was the Turk? As the title and book jacket indicate, a famous chess playing machine designed as a Turkish man sitting at a cabinet with a chessboard on top. The Turk moved its own pieces, could roll its eyes and shake its head, and, having put its opponent in check, say "Check" (or, later, "Echec", the equivalent in French). It could even detect cheating, at which it would return the offending piece to its previous position and then continue with its own turn, forcing the cheater to lose his. Cheat again and the piece would be confiscated; cheat thrice and the Turk would shake his head and sweep all the pieces to the floor.

Although not unbeatable, the Turk won the great majority of its games and defeated some of the best players of its day. It was shown throughout Europe, made its way to the United States, and was even displayed in Cuba. During its travels it played against Napoleon Bonaparte-according to his valet, Napoleon cheated and was duly caught-and Benjamin Franklin, a rumored sore loser. Edgar Allen Poe saw The Turk play and wrote an exposé as to how he thought it worked. Its fame and indeed its life outlasted that of its creator, who rued that it overshadowed his other considerable achievements, and in all its 85 years of existence its secret remained just that. Was it really a machine? Or was there some trick that allowed human intelligence to guide it? If so, how? And what ultimately became of it? Along with the answers to these questions read contemporary theories as to how it worked, and how the genius that went into producing the automata of the time was the precursor to the Industrial Revolution and even today's computer. From early talking machines, mechanical ducks and elephants, and fabulously elaborate clocks and diorama man progressed to mightier machines and thus changed the world.

At the end of the book the author reveals the secret of the Turk, plus tacks on to me a superfluous history of Deep Blue, today's modern equivalent. I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. to finish the book because I wanted so badly to know how The Turk worked and I was afraid I'd cheat otherwise and skip to the end. If you want an entertaining read for a couple evenings, I would highly recommend this book. One doesn't have to play chess to admire The Turk or enjoy its wonderful story.

While we tend to get hung up on the notion of what exactly pure AI is, this book brings us back to square one. Reading the account of The Turk and his exploits it's fascinating to note how little artificial intelligence has changed in 200 years. Regardless of how many advancements have been made in research labs and universities around the world, much of the experience still comes down to trickery orchestrated by humans. The seemingly intelligent Honda robot Asimo is governed by a remote operator. Even less explicit systems such as pattern recognition and neural nets are governed by invisible human hands in the form of their design. Although we've come a long way in terms of technology and computation, anything as fanciful as The Turk is still a long way off.

Tracing the illustrious path of The Turk and his relcutant creator's own life proved to be a rewarding read. The fact that the material here runs a parallel course of science and magic speaks volumes. There's a lot of ground covered; it's well paced and told with a touch of enthusiasm. The sheer number of people The Turk engaged, inspired and challenged is monumental. Considering its subsequent influence on such visionaries as Charles Babbage and Alexander Graham Bell it's a shame that von Kempelen and his most famous creation are widely unknown.

This is the story of a brilliant inventor who manages to be trapped in his own fraud. The story reads very quickly and is deftly interwoven with a history of automata and commentary upon society's interaction with new technology. (Once something gets boring--put it on the shelf for a few years and people will again pay for the experience.)

The book becomes even more interesting when the author details the development of IBM's chess machine that actually fulfills the promise of the earlier machine--the "Turk". Mr. Standage's rare ability to teach broad historical lessons in the context of a focused examination of an old "technology" makes this book a must read.

Makes you wonder if in the future we will be reading books showing how our science-fiction (i.e. Star Trek) accurately presaged some yet to be developed technology.

This is a highly informative book, even for those who couldn't care less about a game of chess. Standage offers a splendid insight in the development of human thought between the 18th and 20th Century. Very entertaining!

Even though it was slow at times, this book mixes fact with a little mystery. Very well crafted.

This is a wonderful history of a chess playing automaton. The author weaves into the history the mechanical progress of the times as well as the public's yearning to view automatons and to be bamboozled.

The "Turk" had an interesting history unto itself which included meeting many important world figures during its long career, including Twain and Napoleon.

In addition to giving the reader what would be only a fairly interesting history, the author did not disclose how the Turk worked until the very end. He shared the many theories posed and the debunking of them. His self-control in holding back the secret kept reading the book as if it were an Ellery Queen novel rather than a piece of non-fiction.

The finishing touch was a chapter on a real chess-playing machine, Big Blue and its human opponent.

This was an interesting and thoroughly entertaining read.

I am geeky enough to find a famous automaton inherently interesting, especially one that seemed to be intelligent, but "The Turk" tickled my curiosity on whole different level. Tom Standage has managed to find one of those threads of history that connects a hundred interesting stories. What other object could connect Benjamin Franklin to P.T. Barnum, not to mention Napoleon , Charles Babbage, and Edgar Allan Poe? This is fine tale, full of strange characters, weird devices, and a dose of human folly , all carried forward by a strong undercurrent of mystery.