In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Torres and the second or maternal family name is Quevedo.
The Most Excellent
Leonardo Torres Quevedo
Autochrome by Auguste Léon, 1921
Born
Leonardo Torres Quevedo
(1852-12-28)28 December 1852
Molledo, Spain
Died
18 December 1936(1936-12-18) (aged 83)
Madrid, Spain
Burial place
Saint Isidore Cemetery
Nationality
Spanish
Education
Official School of the Road Engineers' Corps of Madrid [es]
Occupations
Inventor, mathematician, engineer, Esperantist
Years active
1876–1930
Known for
See list
Introducing
Floating-point arithmetic Inventing
El Ajedrecista Electromechanical Arithmometer [es] (Analytical machine) Telekino [es] (Radio control) Astra-Torres airship Mooring mast Mount Ulia aerial ropeway [es] Whirlpool Aero Car Binave (Catamaran) Camp-Vessel (Balloon carrier) Coordinate Indicator "Guide Torres" Dianemologo (stenographic machine) Railway Interlocks T.Q. Projectable Pointer Didactic Projector Research on
Analog computer Applied mathematics Logarithmic number system Formal language Digital data
Notable work
Essays on Automatics (1914)
Spouse
Luz Polanco y Navarro
(m. 1885)
Children
8, including Gonzalo Torres Polanco
Awards
See list
Civil Order of Alfonso XII (1906)[1] Echegaray Medal (1916) Parville Award (1916) Order of Charles III (1921)[2] Military Order of Saint James of the Sword (1921) Legion of Honour (1922) Honorary degree University of Paris (1923) University of Coimbra (1925) Order of the Spanish Republic (1934)
President of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society
In office 4 December 1920 – 2 February 1924
Preceded by
Zoel García de Galdeano
Succeeded by
Luis Octavio de Toledo y Zulueta
President of the Spanish Section of the International Committee for Weights and Measures
In office 9 February 1921 – 20 June 1929
President of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences
In office 2 February 1928 – 31 October 1934
Preceded by
José Rodríguez Carracido [es]
Succeeded by
Blas Cabrera
Signature
Leonardo Torres Quevedo (Spanish:[leoˈnaɾðoˈtoreskeˈβeðo]; 28 December 1852 – 18 December 1936) was a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, and inventor
of the late 19th century and early 20th century. A member of the Royal Spanish Academy since 1920, he was also a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, among other institutions. Torres was a prolific and versatile innovator in various fields of engineering, including mechanics, aeronautics and automatics. One of his greatest achievements was El Ajedrecista (The Chess Player) of 1912,[3] an electromagnetic device capable of playing a limited form of chess that demonstrated the capability of machines to be programmed to follow specified rules (heuristics) and marked the beginnings of research into the development of artificial intelligence.[4]
His first major project was the patent for a new cable car system in 1887 to transport people safely, an area that culminated in 1916 with the Whirlpool Aero Car located in Niagara Falls, that carries 35 standing passengers over a one-kilometre trip.[5] In between, he published Sur les machines algébriques (1895) and Machines à calculer (1901), technical works that gave him a notorious reputation in France, carrying out the construction of several analog machines for the resolution of algebraic equations.[6]
From 1902 to 1911, Torres made significant aeronautical contributions, most notably a mooring post with a superior pivoting platform to be able to moor a dirigible outdoors, and the Astra-Torres airship, a trilobed cross section structure that was widely used by the Allied Powers during World War I. He was also a key figure in the development of radio control in 1901 with the Telekine, which he created modern wireless remote-control operation principles.[7]
Torres' pioneering advances included the designs for a special-purpose electromechanical calculator in his 1914 paper Essays on Automatics, which has been qualified by British historian Brian Randell as "a fascinating work which well repays reading even today",[8] where he also proposed an early form of floating point values and automata with discernment capacity.[9] He successfully demonstrated the feasibility of an electromechanical analytical engine by producing a typewriter-controlled calculating machine in 1920.[10]
He continued conceiving original designs until his retirement in 1930, especially in naval engineering, such as the Camp-Vessel (a dirigible-carrying boat), and the Binave (a multihull steel ship). In addition to his inventing work, Torres also stood out in the field of letters, and was a noted speaker and supporter of Esperanto.[11]
^"Reales decretos concediendo la Gran Cruz de la Orden civil de Alfonso XII á D. José Malheiro Reyano, D. Francisco Rodríguez Marín y D. Leonardo de Torres Quevedo" (PDF). Gaceta de Madrid (257). Madrid: 1049. 14 September 1906.
^"Real decreto nombrando Caballeros Gran Cruz de la Real y distinguida Orden de Carlos III a D. Leonardo Torres Quevedo, D. Fernando Pérez de Barradas, Marqués de Peñaflor; D. José Antonio Azlor-Aragón y Hurtado de Zaldívar, Duque de Villahermosa, y a D. José María de Hoyos y Vinent, Marqués de Hoyos" (PDF). Gaceta de Madrid (4). Madrid: 43. 4 January 1921.
^Williams, Andrew (2017). History of Digital Games: Developments in Art, Design and Interaction. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1317503811.
^Hosch, William L. Leonardo Torres Quevedo. Encyclopædia Britannica, 20 March 2009.
^"Niagara's Fury".
^Francisco A. González Redondo. Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852–1936). 1ª Parte. Las máquinas algébricas., La Gaceta de la RSME, 2004.
^Randy Alfred, "Nov. 7, 1905: Remote Control Wows Public", Wired, 7 November 2011.
^Randell 1982, pp. 6, 11–13.
^Torres Quevedo, L. (1914). "Ensayos sobre Automática – Su definicion. Extension teórica de sus aplicaciones". Revista de la Academia de Ciencias Exacta, 12, pp. 391–418.
^Randell, Brian. Digital Computers, History of Origins, (pdf), p. 545, Digital Computers: Origins, Encyclopedia of Computer Science, January 2003.
^José Antonio del Barrio. Leonardo Torres Quevedo y el esperanto, 2003.
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Niagara Whirlpool. The system was designed by Spanish engineer LeonardoTorresQuevedo and has been upgraded several times since 1916 (in 1961, 1967 and...
Telekino of Torres-Quevedo,(pdf) vol. 96, No. 1, January 2008, Proceedings of the IEEE. "1902 – Telekine (Telekino) – LeonardoTorresQuevedo (Spanish)"...
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beat the fastest sloop's time by over five minutes. In 1916, LeonardoTorresQuevedo patented a new kind of ship, a multihull steel vessel named Binave...
Terradas i Illa (1883–1950), mathematician, physicist and engineer LeonardoTorresQuevedo (1852–1936), engineer and computer scientist, pioneer of automated...
trans-Atlantic flights in 1910 and 1912. In 1902 the Spanish engineer LeonardoTorresQuevedo published details of an innovative airship design in Spain and...
Chandra Bose, Nitobe Inazo, Marie Curie, Gonzague de Reynold, LeonardoTorresQuevedo, and Robert A. Millikan among its members. The committee was the...
he hoped to sell to the US Navy. In 1903, the Spanish engineer LeonardoTorresQuevedo demonstrated a radio control system called "Telekino" at the Paris...
la Academia de Ciencias Exacta, Revista 12, pp. 391–418, 1914. TorresQuevedo, Leonardo. Automática: Complemento de la Teoría de las Máquinas, (pdf), pp...
rotor and the autogyro, precursor of the helicopter. In 1907, LeonardoTorresQuevedo (1852–1936) started up the world's first aerial lift for passengers...
Whirlpool Aero Car, built in 1916 from a design by Spanish engineer LeonardoTorresQuevedo, is a cable car that takes passengers over the Niagara Whirlpool...
21 – George Callaghan, British admiral (d. 1920) December 28 – LeonardoTorresQuevedo, Spanish engineer, one of pioneers of computing and the radio control...
TorresQuevedo, Leonardo (19 November 1914). "Automática: Complemento de la Teoría de las Máquinas" (PDF). Revista de Obras Públicas: 575–583. Torres...
Leibniz, Joseph Marie Jacquard, Charles Babbage, Percy Ludgate, LeonardoTorresQuevedo, Vannevar Bush, and others. Ada Lovelace speculated that Babbage's...
calculating machines" including those of Percy Ludgate (1909), LeonardoTorresQuevedo (1914), Maurice d'Ocagne (1922), Louis Couffignal (1933), Vannevar...
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Austrian lines and the launching ship Vulcano. The Spanish engineer LeonardoTorresQuevedo introduced a radio-based control-system called the Telekino at...
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