200th anniversary of the death of Wolfgang Kempelen

200 Sk commemorative silver coin

Wolfgang Kempelen (23. 1. 1734 – 24. 3. 1804) – inventor, engineer, technician and pioneer in the area of phonetics – was one of the leading scholars of his time. He held various important official posts in Austria-Hungary, becoming the secretary and later also the councillor of the Royal Hungarian Chamber in Bratislava.

He used his extraordinary scientific and technical abilities to create complex machines and equipment. He constructed a fountain in the park of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, created a system for drawing water for Bratislava Castle, built irrigation facilities in the area of Žitný Ostrov near Bratislava, modernized the technical equipment of salt mines and made a writing machine for the blind. He was especially famous for the automatic chess machine of 1770 and later also an automatic speaking machine, which attracted the general public and became world famous attractions. He also published a pioneering scientific work about the mechanism of human speech, in which he dealt with the origin of speech, and the anatomy and physiology of the speech organs.