The Turk

The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player, was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854 it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was eventually revealed to be an elaborate hoax. The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years.

About The Turk in brief

The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player, was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854 it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was eventually revealed to be an elaborate hoax. The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The machine consisted of a life-sized model of a human head and torso, with a black beard and grey eyes, and dressed in Ottoman robes and a turban. Its left arm held a long Ottoman smoking pipe while at rest, while its right lay on the top of a large cabinet that measured about three and a half feet ) long, two feet wide, and two and ahalf feet high. When opened on the left, the front doors of the cabinet exposed a number of gears and cogs similar to clockwork. A sliding seat was also installed, allowing the operator inside to slide from place to place and thus evade observation as the presenter opened various doors. The design allowed the presenter of the machine to open every available door to the public, to maintain the illusion. While Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a later owner, did not use the box, Kempelen often peered into the box to show that the machine was not influenced by magnetism, suggesting that some aspect of the Turk was controlled by misdirection of the box.

The mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight’s tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once. It was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann NepOMuk Málzel. The chess masters who secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret, and William Schlumberger, but the operators within the mechanism remain a mystery. The internal magnets were positioned in a way that outside magnetic forces did not influence them, and did not allow the operator to sit at the side of the board in a position that would allow a player to see which places on the board were affected by a player’s move. The bottom of the chessboard had corresponding magnets allowing the operators to see where on the chess board were a player’s move, and allowing them to move the pieces in a certain way. When the machine came with a small wooden coffin-like box, the presenter would place the box on top of the top board to place the player on the play area. The box was later used to place a player into the machine, so that the player could see where to move in the game.

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