Talk:Wolfgang von Kempelen

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Topics[edit]

According to my hungarian friend, Wolfgang was in fact Hungarian, so why is this an Austrian people stub? 194.193.78.109 14:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know his ancestors were immigrants from Ireland.
Because Hungaria was Austria at that time, and to make things simpler, Bratislava is actually a capital of Slovakia, which was then known as Upper Hungaria. Smylei 22:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So this article should be changed to Slovak biographical article...:) --82.119.114.132 11:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How can his nationality be indicated as slovak?

Pressburg/Pozsony was hungarian to 1920. Only 1/6 of inhabitants were slovaks then. He had no slovak ancestors and he was culturally sloval either. Typical that hungarians or mixed hungarians born in area since 1920 not Hungary are indicated wrongly as slovaks. (Bél, Liszt etc) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.224.188.228 (talk) 11:55, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

From historical references, he was apparently of Austrian origin with his native tongue being German. Pressburg was a "multi-national", or, to be precise, multi-lingual, city of the time (before the concept of a "nation" existed, mind you). It was also the (at the time) the capital of Hungary while Buda was occupied by the Turks. Kempelen was neither "Austrian" nor "Hungarian" nor "Slovak" as none of these designations had a meaning at the time of this life. The best description is probably something along "A person of German origin, born in Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia) who lived and was active mostly in the Hungarian part of the Habsburg Empire and died in Vienna, the capital of the Empire at the time." Had he lived a hunderd year later, we could call him "Austro-Hungarian", but the desigantion of "Austro-Hungary" did not apply at his time as the empire was way bigger then. Also the term "Upper Hungary" is incorrect here, as its association with Slovakia and this Bratislava post-dates his time by two centuries. At his time Pressburg was definitely not part of the "Upper" (as in mountaineous) parts of the Kingdom of Hungary.
83.240.61.90 (talk) 19:46, 6 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

Von Kempelen is known in English sources by the German version of his name, not a Hungarian one. It can be easily proved for example by references in scholar.google.com (163 references to Wolfgang von Kempelen scholar vs. 27 to Kempelen Farkas). VinceB, please refrain from hungarizing names in this Wikipedia. There is also a Hungarian Wikipedia, where you can do it. But this is an English version. Tankred 20:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then I learned something new. :-) I didn't knew that??? OMG! Then? This is why this page is editable to everybody. Gosh....--Vince hey, yo! :-) 22:38, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hoax[edit]

Kempelen's machine is widely supposed to be a hoax, since chess-playing processor is considered beyond the available technological capacities. However, the exact nature of the "hoax" was never revealed, in spite of many public presentations until the mysterious destruction of the machine in fire. In other words, the evidence is missing and the hoax formulation should be weakened. Smylei 22:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, what? I'm not really following - that The Turk was a massive hoax isn't even a question. Whether it was revealed or not during Kempelen's time is irrelevant to that fact. What are you getting at? --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject class rating[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 08:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disputed neutrality[edit]

Kempelen was German at first, not Hungarian. --Wizzard (talk) 15:48, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

fixed. --Wizzard (talk) 15:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Sorry Kempelen parrents was irish in hungarian —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.34.233 (talk) 09:52, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hungarian Wikipedia[[Kempelen Farkas--84.0.34.233 (talk) 09:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)]][reply]

A rather pointless dispute. In what way was he "Hungarian" or "Austrian" or "German"? Ethnicity or nationality? He was born in the kingdom of Hungary, but the "king of Hungary" at the time was Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor (i.e. Hungary was part of the Habsburg Empire and only by mere convention continued to be called a "kingdom"), so he was an Austrian subject (like all other Germans, Hungarians and Slavs in the area).

In terms of ethnicity, he was part of the German-speaking majority in Pressburg at the time, so it is arguable he was an "ethnic German". The supposed Irish ancestry was a century in the past, and the fact(?) that his surname was Hungarian is even more tenuous in identifying ethnicity (or Tolkien is a "German" author).

It will be best to just drop the "ethnic" adjectives in the description altogether, nobody forces us to use them if they aren't applicable. --dab (𒁳) 15:43, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and re-did this section, removing the "Hungarian" attribution and recasting the sentence structure to allow readers to infer that if he were born inside the Hungarian Empire, he must be Hungarian. If this method is not acceptable, please go ahead and revert. With regard to his Irish parents, Dr. Alice Reininger, who recently wrote the most authoritative biography on von Kempelen, states in her book that she could not find concrete evidence that Engelbert von Kempelen was of Irish descent, so I omitted that as well. I can add that into the first graf if necessary. Kirby Krackle (talk) 16:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Edgar Alan Poe[edit]

Poe's writing "Von Kempelen and His Discovery" seems to be legitamete Essay about Von Kempelen. Has anyone else heard of this? Edgar Alan Poe

"Von Kempelen and His Discovery" (1849) revolves around a chemist named von Kempelen who discovers a formula for transmuting lead to gold, so it's more likely a fictional story Poe wrote to capitalize on popular recognition of von Kempelen's name, as Johann Maelzel exhibited Kempelen's automaton in the United States in the years prior to the story's appearance. Poe did write an essay about the automaton called 'Maelzel's Chess Player,' and in it reports having spoken to Maelzel. This essay has its own entry here.Kirby Krackle (talk) 17:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent adaptation of Kempelen's life and works[edit]

I'd suggest it's worth linking to this beautifully created and painstakingly researched webcomic that traces Kempelen's life: http://www.clockwork-comics.com The writer/artist gives so much information on the background of each page in the story, it's a really good resource for people wanting to know more about the man. For instance, check out this page: http://www.clockwork-comics.com/2011/06/30/it_still_has_much_room_for_imp/ Disclaimer, of course - I'm not the author, I just think this is worth including! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.209.243.142 (talk) 11:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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