The Turk: The Chess Machine That Fooled Europe

Sarah, imagine you are the best chess player in Europe. You walk into a palace and sit down in front of a machine. And it beats you.Sarah，想象你是欧洲最好的棋手。你走进一座宫殿，在一台机器前坐下。然后它赢了你。

No computer. No electricity. Just wood, metal, and a figure in a turban who never said a word.没有电脑，没有电。只有木头、金属，和一个戴头巾、从不说一句话的人偶。

That is exactly the question everyone was asking for 84 years.这正是大家问了 84 年的问题。

An Austrian official named Wolfgang von Kempelen. In 1769 he watched a French magician perform at the palace of Empress Maria Theresa. He was not impressed. He promised the court that within a year he would bring back something far better.一位叫沃尔夫冈·冯·肯佩伦的奥地利官员。1769 年，他在玛丽亚·特蕾西娅女皇的宫殿里看一位法国魔术师表演。他并不觉得精彩。他当众承诺，一年之内会带回一个强得多的东西。

And he kept it. In 1770 he showed up with a chess player. A life-sized figure with a black beard and grey eyes, wearing Ottoman robes and a turban. It sat behind a wooden cabinet, about 110 centimetres long, 60 deep and 75 high. On top was a chessboard. In front there were three doors and a drawer with red and white ivory pieces.他做到了。1770 年，他带来一个会下棋的"人"。真人大小，黑胡子灰眼睛，穿土耳其长袍、戴头巾。它坐在一个木柜后面，柜子大约 110 厘米长、60 厘米深、75 厘米高。柜子上面是棋盘。正面有三扇门，还有一个抽屉，里面装红白象牙棋子。

Everyone looked. That was part of the show. Before each game Kempelen opened every door, one at a time, and let people look at the wheels and gears. He opened the back as well, so you could see straight through the machine. People came out convinced it was empty.大家都看了。这就是表演的一部分。每局开始前，肯佩伦会把每一扇门逐个打开，让人看里面的轮子和齿轮。他还把后门也打开，让人能直接看穿整台机器。观众看完出来，都确信里面是空的。

On a sliding seat. When Kempelen opened the left side, the player slid over to the right. When he opened the right, the player slid back. The doors on each side were never open at the same time.用一张可滑动的椅子。肯佩伦打开左边时，棋手滑到右边。打开右边时，棋手滑回左边。两边的门从来不会同时打开。

A very quiet grown man. Inside he had a candle, a small chessboard, and magnets. Magnets under the big board told him where every piece stood. From there he moved the figure's arm with a simple linkage.还是个一点声音都不能出的活人。里面有一支蜡烛、一个小棋盘，还有磁铁。大棋盘下面的磁铁会告诉他每个棋子的位置。然后他用一套简单的连杆机构来移动人偶的手臂。

So it won. In 1783 it went on tour. In Paris it played Philidor, the strongest player of the age. Philidor won, and said afterwards that it was the most tiring game of his life. Then it played the American ambassador, Benjamin Franklin, who enjoyed it so much that he kept a book about the machine in his own library.所以它总赢。1783 年开始巡演。在巴黎它对上了当时最强的棋手菲利多尔。菲利多尔赢了，事后说这是他这辈子最累的一盘棋。接着它对上美国大使本杰明·富兰克林，富兰克林非常喜欢，还专门在自己书房里收藏了一本讲这台机器的书。

1809, at Schönbrunn Palace. The story goes that Napoleon made an illegal move. The figure put the piece back. He did it again, and the figure took the piece off the board. A third time, and the figure swept every piece onto the floor.1809 年，美泉宫。传说是拿破仑故意走了一步违规的棋。人偶把棋子放回原位。他又来一次，人偶直接把那颗棋子从棋盘上拿走。第三次，人偶一挥手，把所有棋子扫到了地上。

It is. And every book tells it differently. One version has Napoleon putting a magnet on the board. Another has him wrapping cloth around the figure's head so it cannot see. The version with the swept pieces was printed decades later, by someone who was not in the room.是很精彩。但每本书讲的都不一样。有个版本是拿破仑在棋盘上放了块磁铁。还有个版本是他用布蒙住人偶的头让它看不见。扫棋子那版，是几十年后才有人写出来的，而写的人当时并不在场。

Only the small part. Napoleon played it, and he lost. He took it well.只有那一小部分。拿破仑确实跟它下了棋，也确实输了。他输得还挺开心。

Kempelen died in 1804. The machine passed to a showman named Johann Mälzel, who took it to New York in 1826. In 1836 Edgar Allan Poe saw it and wrote a long essay saying he had worked it out.肯佩伦 1804 年去世。机器转到了一个叫约翰·梅尔策尔的演出经纪人手里，他 1826 年把它带到了纽约。1836 年，爱伦·坡看了表演，写了一篇长文，说自己已经把它看穿了。

He got one big thing right. A person was inside. But his picture of how that person moved around was wrong, and he was extremely sure of himself. That essay is still famous today, mostly for being confident and incorrect at the same time.他抓对了一件大事：里面有人。但他对这个人怎么移动的推断是错的，而且他极其自信。那篇文章今天仍然很有名，主要是因为它既自信又错误。

Badly and quietly. Mälzel's last operator, William Schlumberger, died of yellow fever in Havana. Mälzel died at sea in 1838 on the way home. The machine was sold at auction for 400 dollars, repaired, and given to a museum in Philadelphia, where it was put in a corner and forgotten.结局又糟又安静。梅尔策尔最后一位操作者威廉·施伦贝格尔在哈瓦那死于黄热病。梅尔策尔 1838 年在返航途中死于海上。机器在拍卖会上以 400 美元卖掉，修好之后送进费城一家博物馆，被塞进角落，被人忘了。

July 5, 1854. A fire started in a theatre next door and spread to the museum. That was 84 years after the first show in Vienna.1854 年 7 月 5 日。隔壁剧院起火，烧到了博物馆。那时距离维也纳首演已经过去 84 年。

Not properly. The full explanation came in 1857, in a chess magazine, written by the son of the doctor who had owned it. Three years after it burned. The secret came out when there was nothing left to look at.没有说清。完整解释是 1857 年才出现在一本棋类杂志上，作者是那位曾拥有它的医生的儿子。那时它已经烧掉三年了。秘密是在没什么可看的时候才被说出来的。

He called it a bagatelle. A little thing. A trick. He promised the court an illusion bigger than the magician's, and that is exactly what he sold them.他管它叫"小玩意"（bagatelle）。一个小东西，一个戏法。他向宫廷承诺的是一个比魔术师更大的幻术，而他卖的正是这个。

And the label was written by the audience, not by the man with the tools.而那个标签是观众自己写的，不是造它的人写的。

Honestly? Yes. And I would lose, and I would tell everyone I nearly won.说实话？愿意。然后我会输，然后我会跟所有人说我差点赢了。