Kempelen, Farkas Wolfgang

Kempelen, Farkas Wolfgang

 

Born Jan. 23, 1734, in Pozsony (Bratislava); died Mar. 26, 1804, in Vienna. Hungarian engineer and inventor.

Kempelen is known chiefly for his inventions of various automatic devices, including a typewriter for the blind and a mechanical chess player (1769), and for his hydraulic engineering works, notably the technically complicated fountain in the park of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna (1772). Kempelen also prepared the plans for a canal connecting the Danube with the Adriatic Sea.