Leonardo Torres Quevedo facts for kids

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In this Spanish name, the first or paternal family name is Torres and the second or maternal family name is Quevedo.

Quick facts for kids The Most Excellent Leonardo Torres Quevedo
Torres in 1917
Born	Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1852-12-28)28 December 1852 Molledo, Spain
Died	18 December 1936(1936-12-18) (aged 83) Madrid, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Education	Official School of the Corps of Civil Engineers
Occupation	Inventor, computer scientist, engineer, Esperantist
Years active	1876-1930
Known for	Introduce Floating-point arithmetic El Ajedrecista Telekino (Radio control) Analytical machine Astra-Torres airship Whirlpool Aero Car
Notable work	Essays on Automatics (1913)
Awards	Civil Order of Alfonso XII (1906) Echegaray Medal (1916) Order of Charles III (1921) Legion of Honour (1922) Honorary doctorate (Sorbonne: 1923 - UC: 1925) Order of the Spanish Republic (1934)


Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences
In office 19 May 1901 – 18 December 1936



Corresponding Member of the Argentine Scientific Society
In office 2 August 1910 – 18 December 1936



Seat N of the Royal Spanish Academy
In office 31 October 1920 – 18 December 1936
Preceded by	Benito Pérez Galdós
Succeeded by	Manuel Machado



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



Honorary Member of the Geneva Society of Physics and Natural History
In office 17 May 1923 – 18 December 1936



Corresponding Member of the Hispanic Society of America
In office 12 December 1925 – 18 December 1936



Foreign Associate Member of the French Academy of Sciences
In office 27 June 1927 – 18 December 1936



President of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences
In office 2 February 1928 – 31 October 1934
Preceded by	José Rodríguez Carracido
Succeeded by	Blas Cabrera

Signature

Leonardo Torres Quevedo (Spanish: [le.oˈnardo ˈtores keˈβeðo]; 28 December 1852 – 18 December 1936) was a Spanish civil engineer, computer scientist, and inventor. A prolific and versatile innovator, his fields of interest in engineering were very extensive and included mechanics, aeronautics, and automatics. He pioneered in computing by proposing a form of floating-point and using relays to implement the arithmetic functions of a calculating machine. A key figure in the development of radio control with his Telekine, in which he laid down modern wireless remote-control operation principles. He built El Ajedrecista, a chess automaton that demonstrated the capability of machines to be programmed to follow specified rules (heuristics), and proposed automata capable of discerning in his 1913 work Essays on Automatics. He wrote acclaimed theoretical papers related to analog calculus, developing several machines for the resolution of some types of algebraic equations. He made significant contributions in the field of airships, where he designed an original system of mooring posts and the Astra-Torres trilobed blimp that was used by the Allied Powers during World War I. He conceived a new type of cable car to transport people safely, an area that culminated in the Whirlpool Aero Car located in Niagara Falls, that carries 35 standing passengers over a one-kilometre trip. He also participated in naval engineering projects, patenting innovative designs of boats to carried dirigible balloons and catamarans. Furthermore, he was a noted speaker and supporter of Esperanto.

Biography
Career
Legacy
Awards
Selected works
See also

Biography

Torres was born on 28 December 1852, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, in Santa Cruz de Iguña, Cantabria, Spain. His father, Luis Torres Vildósola y Urquijo, was a civil engineer in Bilbao, where he worked as a railway engineer. His mother was Valentina de Quevedo y Maza. The family resided for the most part in Bilbao, although they also spent long periods in his mother's family home in Cantabria's mountain region. During his childhood, he spent long periods of time separated from his parents due to work trips. Therefore, he was cared for by the ladies of Barrenechea, relatives of his father, who declared him heir to their property, which facilitated his future independence. He studied high school in Bilbao and later went to Paris, to the College of the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, to complete studies for two years (1868 and 1869).

Leonardo Torres Quevedo by Christian Franzen in the magazine La Ilustración Española y Americana, 15 March 1916.

In 1870, his father was transferred, bringing his family to Madrid. The same year, Torres began his higher studies in the Official School of the Corps of Civil Engineers [es]. He temporarily suspended his studies in 1873 to volunteer for the defense of Bilbao, which had been surrounded by Carlist troops during the Third Carlist War. Once the siege of Bilbao was lifted in 1874, he returned to Madrid and completed his studies in 1876, graduating fourth in his class. He began his career with the same train company for which his father had worked, but he immediately left it and set out on a long trip through Europe visiting Italy, France and Switzerland, to know the scientific and technical advances of the day, especially in the incipient area of electricity.

Upon returning to Spain, he took up residence in Santander where he financed his own work and began a study and investigation that he never abandoned. In 1885 he married Luz Polanco y Navarro in Portolín, with whom he had eight children (Leonardo and Julia, who died young, Luz, Valentina, Luisa, Gonzalo, Leonardo and Fernando). In 1889 he moved to Madrid and became involved in that city's cultural life. In 1901 he entered the Royal Academy of Exact Physical and Natural Sciences in Madrid, of which entity he was president between 1928 and 1934. From the work he carried out in these years, the Athenæum of Madrid created the Laboratory of Applied Mechanics (later on Automatics) in 1907, of which Torres was named director. The Laboratory dedicated itself to the manufacture of scientific instruments. Among the work of the Laboratory, the magnetograph of Gonzalo Brañas, the microtome of Ramón y Cajal and the X-ray spectrograph of Blas Cabrera were notable.

In 1910 he traveled to Argentina with the Infanta Isabel to propose, at the Fourth Pan-American Conference, the constitution of the Hispano-American Union of Scientific Biography and Technology. The same year he became a corresponding member of the Argentine Scientific Society [es]. In 1926 appeared the first issue of a Spanish-American Technological Dictionary.

Torres, as a newly admitted member of the Royal Spanish Academy, seen here with some of his fellow academicians following his admission ceremony, 31 October 1920.

In 1916 King Alfonso XIII of Spain bestowed the Echegaray Medal upon him; and in 1918, he declined the offer of the position of Minister of Development. In 1920, he was admitted to the Royal Spanish Academy, to fill the seat vacated by the death of Benito Pérez Galdós, and became a member of the department of Mechanics of the Paris Academy of Science. That same year he was elected president of the Spanish Mathematical Society, a position he held until 1924. In 1921 he became president of the Spanish section of the International Committee for Weights and Measures of Paris. In 1923 the Sorbonne named him an Honorary Doctor and became an Honorary fellow of the Geneva Society of Physics and Natural History [fr]. In 1925 he received another Honoray degree by the University of Coimbra and was appointed a corresponding member of the Hispanic Society of America. In 1927 he was named one of the twelve foreign associate members of the French Academy. Between 1906 and 1934 he also received decorations such as the Civil Order of Alfonso XII, the Order of Charles III, the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword, the Legion of Honour, and the Order of the Spanish Republic.

In the early 1900s, Torres learned the international language Esperanto, and was an advocate of the language throughout his life. From 1922 to 1926, he participated in the work of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, proposing the following motion on the first day of the meeting: "The Committee, convinced of the usefulness of an artificial auxiliary language to facilitate scientific relations between different peoples, establishes a subcommittee in charge of studying , with the help of experts, the various solutions that have been proposed”. Although almost half of the Committee members were in favor of Esperanto, Torres' motion met with determined opposition from some other participants.

Torres died at home of his son Gonzalo in Madrid, in the heat of the Spanish Civil War and after a progressive illness, on 18 December 1936, ten days before his eighty-fourth birthday.

Career

Cableways

Cable car at the mount Ulía, inaugurated in 1907.

Torres' experimentation in the field of cableways and cable cars began very early during his residence in the town of his birth, Molledo. There, in 1887, he constructed the first cableway to span a depression of some 40 metres (130 ft). The cableway was about 200 metres (660 ft) across and pulled by a pair of cows, with one log seat. This experiment was the basis for his first patent application in Spain, "Un sistema de camino funicular aéreo de alambres múltiples" ("A multi-wire aerial funicular road system"), for a cable car with which he obtained a level of safety suitable for the transport of people, not only cargo. He later obtained a patent in other countries: United States, Austria, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. An original component of Torres' cable cars is the way of supporting the cables via. In a end are anchored to fixed concrete counterweights, and in the other to mobile counterweights suspended from the cables, that go through some pulleys. With this system the axial force of the cables via is constant, equal to the weight of the counterweight, regardless of the load that can go in the gondola. What will vary with this load is the deflection of the via cables, which will increase by raising the counterweight. Thus, the safety coefficient of these cables is perfectly known, and is independent of the shuttle load. The resulting design was very strong and perfectly resisted the failure of one of the support cables. Later, he constructed a cableway over the Río León in Valle de Iguña [es], Spain, that was faster and motorized, but still used solely for the transport of materials, not of people.

In 1890 he presented his cableway in Switzerland, a country very interested in that form of transport owing to its geography and which was already starting to use cable cars for bulk transport, but Torres' project was dismissed, receiving some ironic commentary from the Swiss press. In 1907, Torres constructed the first cableway suitable for the public transportation of people in the mount Ulía region in San Sebastián. The execution of the project was the responsibility of the Society of Engineering Studies and Works of Bilbao. Since then, other cable cars were built in Chamonix, Bolzano, Grindelwald, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere.

The Niagara Aerocar.

But it is doubtless the Spanish Aerocar in Niagara Falls in Canada which has gained the greatest fame in this area of activity, although from a scientific point of view it was not the most important. The cableway of 550 meters in length is an aerial cable car that spans the whirlpool in the Niagara Gorge on the Canadian side. It travels at about 7.2 kilometres per hour (4.5 mph). The load per cable via is 9 tonnes (9.9 short tons), with a safety coefficient for the cables of 4.6. It was constructed between 1914 and 1916, a Spanish project from beginning to end: devised by a Spaniard and constructed by a Spanish company with Spanish capital (The Niagara Spanish Aerocar Co. Limited); a bronze plaque, located on a monolith at the entrance of the access station recalls this fact: Spanish aerial ferry of the Niagara. Leonardo Quevedo Torres (1852–1936). It was inaugurated in tests on 15 February 1916 and was officially inaugurated on 8 August 1916, opening to the public the following day; the cableway, with small modifications, continues to run to this day, with no accidents worthy of mention, constituting a popular tourist and cinematic attraction.

Analogue calculating machines

Torres' Algebraic Machine

Since the middle of the 19th century, several mechanical devices were known, from integrators, multipliers, to the Analytical engine of Charles Babbage. The first papers published by Torres were precisely to describe his algebraic machines. In 1893, he presented the "Memória sobre las máquinas algébricas" ("Memory about algebraic machines") at the Academy of Exact Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain. This work was commented in a report by Eduardo Saavedra in 1894 and published in the Revista de Obras Públicas. Torres developed a first model of the machine, and Saavedra recommended that the final project of the device be financed. Torres' calculating machine was considered in its time as an extraordinary event in the course of Spanish scientific production. In 1895 he presented "Machines algébriques", accompanied by his demonstration model, at the Bordeaux Congress of the Association pour l'Avancement des Sciences. Later on, in 1900, he presented a more detailed work, "Machines á calculer" ("Calculating machines") at the Paris Academy of Sciences. The Commission, informed favorably by Marcel Deprez, Henri Poincaré and Paul Appell, asked the Academy for its publication. These machines examined mathematical and physical analogies that underlay analogue calculation or continuous quantities, and how to establish mechanically the relationships between them, expressed in mathematical formulae. The study included complex variables and used the logarithmic scale. From a practical standpoint, it showed that mechanisms such as turning disks could be used endlessly with precision, so that changes in variables were limited in both directions.

On the practical side, Torres built a whole series of analogue calculating machines, all mechanical. These machines used certain elements known as arithmophores which consisted of a moving part and an index that made it possible to read the quantity according to the position shown thereon. The aforesaid moving part was a graduated disk or a drum turning on an axis. The angular movements were proportional to the logarithms of the magnitudes to be represented. Between 1910 and 1920, using a number of such elements, Torres developed a machine that could solve algebraic equations, even one with eight terms, finding the roots, including the complex ones, with a precision of thousandths. The machine calculated the following formula: $\alpha = \frac{A_1 X^a + A_2 X^b + A_3 X^c + A_4 X^d + A_5 X^e}{A_6 X^f + A_7 X^g + A_8 X^h} \,$ where X is the variable and A₁ … A₈ is the coefficient of each term. Considering the case of α = 1, it becomes the following formula, and the root of the algebraic equation can be obtained: $A_1 X^a + A_2 X^b + A_3 X^c + A_4 X^d + A_5 X^e - A_6 X^f - A_7 X^g - A_8 X^h = 0 \,$

Fusee sans fin (endless spindle)

One part of this machine, called an "endless spindle" ("fusee sans fin") and consisting of great mechanical complexity, allowed the mechanical expression of the relation $y=\log(10^x+1)$ , with the aim of extracting the logarithm of a sum as a sum of logarithms, the same technique which is the basis of the modern electronic Logarithmic Number System. Since an analogue machine was being used, the variable could be of any value (not only integer values). With a polynomial equation, the wheels representing the unknown rotate, and the result gives the values of the sum of the variables. When this sum coincides with the value of the second member, the wheel of the unknown shows a root.

With the intention of demonstrating them, Torres also built a machine for solving a second-order equation with complex coefficients, and an integrator. The machines are kept in the "Torres Quevedo" Museum at the Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos of the Technical University of Madrid.

Aerostatics

Airship Astra-Torres No.1 at an air show in 1911

Torres with a model of his airship in 1913

In 1902, Torres presented to the Science Academies of Madrid and Paris the project of a new type of dirigible titled "Perfectionnements aux aerostats dirigibles" ("Improvements in drigible aerostats"), that would solve the serious problem of suspending the gondola by including an internal frame of flexible cables that would give the airship rigidity by way of internal pressure. A system called "auto-rigid". One of most important innovation in this airship was to make the balloon trilobed, so that safety was increased.

In 1904, he was appointed director of the Center for Aeronautical Essays in Madrid, "for the technical and experimental study of the air navigation problem and the management of remote engine maneuvers".

In 1905, with the help of Alfredo Kindelán, Torres directed the construction of the first Spanish dirigible in the Army Military Aerostatics Service, located in Guadalajara. Once the construction was successfully completed in 1908, the new airship, which received the name of Torres Quevedo, carried out several test flights. As a result, a collaboration began between Torres and the French company Astra, which managed to buy the patent with a cession of rights extended to all countries except Spain, in order to make possible the construction of the dirigible in its country. So, in 1911, the construction of dirigibles known as the Astra-Torres airships was begun.

The Astra-Torres airship attached to a portable mooring post.

Statue of Leonardo Torres Quevedo at the Air Museum in Madrid.

To find a resolution to the slew of problems faced by airship engineers in docking dirigibles, Torres also drew up designs for a ‘docking station’ and made alterations to airship design. In 1910, Torres proposed the idea of attaching an airships nose to a mooring mast and allowing the airship to weathervane with changes of wind direction. The use of a metal column erected on the ground, the top of which the bow or stem would be directly attached to (by a cable) would allow a dirigible to be moored at any time, in the open, regardless of wind speeds. Additionally, Torres' design called for the improvement and accessibility of temporary landing sites, where airships were to be moored for the purpose of disembarkation of passengers. The final patent was presented in February 1911 in Belgium, and later to France and the United Kingdom in 1912, under the title "Improvements in Mooring Arrengements for Airships".

In 1913, the handing over of the Astra-Torres XIV (the HMA.No 3 to the Royal Naval Air Service) meant international recognition for the system with this ship beating the world speed record for an airship registering 83.2 km/h during the reception trials, a speed which reached 124 km/h with the wind in its favour. The distinctive trilobed design was widely used during the First World War by the Entente powers for diverse tasks, principally convoy protection and anti-submarine warfare.

In 1919, Torres designed, based on a proposal of the engineer Emilio Herrera Linares, a transatlantic dirigible, which was named Hispania, aiming to claim the honor of the first transatlantic flight for Spain. Owing to financial problems, the project was delayed and it was the Britons John Alcock and Arthur Brown who crossed the Atlantic non-stop from Newfoundland to Ireland in a Vickers Vimy twin-engine plane, in sixteen hours and twelve minutes.

The success of Torres' airships during the war even drew the attention of the Imperial Japanese Navy, who acquired a model in 1922. Despire the patent expired that year, several airships continued to be built with ideas inherited from this non-rigid design.

Radio control: the Telekino

Telekino: transmitter (top) - receiver (bottom).

Torres was a pioneer in the field of remote control. In 1903, he presented the Telekino at the Paris Academy of Science, together with a detailed memory and a practical demonstration to its members, which was highlighted by the international press. Between 1902 and 1903, the invention titled "Systéme dit Télékine pour commander à distance un mouvement mécanique" ("Means or method for directing mechanical movements at or from a distance") obtained patents in France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States. Torres chose the name Telekino as a combination of two Greek words: tele which means “at distance” and kino which means “movement”, resulting both together “movement at distance”, which was what he wanted to obtain. It was intended as a way of testing a dirigible of his own design without risking human lives.

The Telekino has three different parts: a wireless telegraph receiver, a multi-position switch unit and two servomotors that can be used to drive a mechanical system. The signal transmitted by electromagnetic waves, is received by the antenna and is transformed into electric pulses by a coherer. Each pulse drives an electromagnet, which closes its secondary circuit causing the multi-position switch unit to go one step forward. This operation is repeated automatically as many times as the number of signal impulses. When the multi-position switch reaches its final position, the battery supplies current to the chosen servomotor terminal. Then, the servomotor is put in motion causing a known and previously defined action. Torres guessed that in order to achieve a finite but not limited set of actions based on a binary system as the telegraph was, (with only two states, on and off), creating a limited number of codewords using a sequence of binary states, as long as needed, was necessary. In this way, for instance , with a sequence of two binary states. It is know that we can achieve up to four different codewords. The problem, at that time, was the impossibility of having a synchronisation mechanism able to detect the end of one character and the beginning of the next. In this situation, the only way to solve this difficulty was using an asynchronous synchronisation method based on the change in the telegraph signal state. The final proposal was as simple as using a code based on the number of pulses consecutively sent; so, the action, e.g. number one, corresponded to one pulse, to two pulses corresponded the action number 2, to three pulses the action number 3 and so on. Specifically, Torres was able to do up to 19 different actions with his prototypes.

In 1905 Torres chose to conduct initial Telekino testing in an electric three-wheeled land vehicle in the Beti Jai fronton of Madrid, which had an effective range of just 20 to 30 meters, which it appears to be the first known example of a radio-controlled unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). The same year, he tested a second model of the Telekino located in a boat in the pond of the Casa de Campo in Madrid, achieving distances of up to about 250 m. The final setting for the Telekino tests was the Bilbao Abra. A first experiment with the Telekino remotely governing the maneuvers of the electric boat Vizcaya was carried out from the terrace of the Club Marítimo del Abra, and with the assistance of the President of the Provincial Council and other authorities. On 25 September 1906, in the presence of the king Alfonso XIII and before a great crowd, Torres successfully demonstrated the invention in the port of Bilbao, guiding the boat Vizcaya from the shore with people on board, which was controlled at a distance over 2 km. Later, he would try to apply the Telekino to projectiles and torpedoes but had to abandon the project for lack of financing.

Chess automaton: El Ajedrecista

"El Ajedrecista" #1 (The Chessplayer), complete view.

In early 1910, Torres began to construct a chess automaton he dubbed El Ajedrecista (The Chessplayer). As opposed to the The Turk and Ajeeb, El Ajedrecista had a true integrated automation and could automatically play a king and rook endgame against the king from any position, without any human intervention

The pieces had a metallic mesh at their base, which closed an electric circuit that encoded their position in the board. When the black king was moved by hand, an algorithm calculated and performed the next best move for the white player. The automaton does not deliver checkmate in the minimum number of moves, nor always within the 50 moves allotted by the fifty-move rule, because of the simple algorithm that calculates the moves. It did, however, checkmate the opponent every time. If an illegal move was made by the opposite player, the automaton would signal it by turning on a light. If the opposing player made three illegal moves, the automaton would stop playing. The device could be considered the first computer game in history.

An example game where White, following Torres' algorithm, checkmates the black King, recorded in Portable Game Notation:

[FEN "8/8/1k6/8/R7/8/5K2/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Rh4 Kc5 2. Kf3 Kd5 3. Ke3 Kd6 4. Rh5 Kc6 5. Ke4 Kd6 6. Rg5 Kc6 7. Kd4 Kd6 8. Rg6+ Kd7 9. Kd5 Ke7 10. Rh6 Kf7 11. Ra6 Ke7 12. Rb6 Kf7 13. Ke5 Ke7 14. Rb7+ Kd8 15. Ke6 Kc8 16. Rh7 Kb8 17. Rg7 Ka8 18. Kd6 Kb8 19. Kc6 Ka8 20. Kb6 Kb8 21. Rg8#

"El Ajedrecista" #2, interior view.

It created great excitement when it made its debut, at the University of Paris in 1914. Its internal construction was published by H. Vigneron in an article of La Nature. It was widely mentioned in a Scientific American supplement as "Torres and His Remarkable Automatic Devices", on November 6, 1915.

A second version was constructed by his son Gonzalo under his direction, and was presented in Paris in 1922. It was more elegant and more technically perfected. The mechanical arms to move pieces were replaced for electromagnets located under the board. It also included a sound effect, with a voice recording announcing checkmate when the computer won the game.

At the 1951 Paris Cybernetic Congress the advanced machine was introduced to a greater audience and explained to Norbert Wiener . El Ajedrecista also defeated Savielly Tartakower at the Congress, being the first Grandmaster to lose against a machine.

Analytical machines

It has been commonly assumed (see Metropolis and Worlton 1980) that Charles Babbage’s work on a mechanical digital program-controlled computer, which he started in 1835 and pursued off and on until his death in 1871, had been completely forgotten and was only belatedly recognized as a forerunner to the modern digital computer. Ludgate, Torres Quevedo, and Bush give the lie to this belief, and all made fascinating contributions that deserve to be better known.

Torres' major written work, "Ensayos sobre Automática" ("Essays on Automatics") (1913), introduced the idea of floating point arithmetic, which historian Randell says was described "almost casually," apparently without recognizing the significance of the discovery. He also proposed a machine that acts intelligently like a human or replaces a human, and is equivalent to various current automated control machines. This machine makes "judgments" using sensors that capture information from the outside, parts that manipulate the outside world such as arms, power sources such as batteries and air pressure, and, most importantly, captures current and past information. It is defined as a machine that can control its reactions like a living thing according to external information and adapt to changes in the environment by changing its behavior.

The paper provides the main link between Torres and Babbage. Torres gives a brief history of Babbage's efforts at constructing a mechanical Difference Engine and Analytical Engine. He described the Analytical Engine as exemplifying his theories as to the potential power of machines, and takes the problem of designing such an engine as a challenge to his skills as an inventor of electromechanical devices. Contains a complete design (albeit one that Torres regarded as theoretical rather than practical) for a machine capable of calculating completely automatically the value of the formula $a^x(y - z)^2$ , for a sequence of sets of values of the variables involved. It demonstrates cunning electromechanical gadgets for storing decimal digits, for performing arithmetic operations using built-in function tables, and for comparing the values of two quantities. The whole machine was to be controlled from a read-only program (complete with provisions for conditional branching), represented by a pattern of conducting areas mounted around the surface of a rotating cylinder. The paper ends with a comparison of the advantages of electromechanical devices that were all that were available to Babbage. It establishes that Torres would have been quite capable of building a general-purpose electromechanical computer more than 20 years ahead of its time, had the practical need, motivation, and financing been present.

Torres Quevedo's 1920 Electromechanical Arithmometer, which used a remote typewriter to send commands to an electromechanical calculator and to print its results once computed.

However, Torres went ahead to prove his point with a series of working prototypes. He demonstrated twice, in 1914 and in 1920, that all of the cogwheel mechanisms of a calculating machine like that of Babbage could be implemented using electromechanical parts. His 1914 analytical machine used a small memory built with electromagnets, capable of evaluating p × q — b. In 1920, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the arithmometer, he presented in Paris the "Arithmomètre Electroméchanique" ("Electromechanical Arithmometer"), which consisted of an arithmetic unit connected to a (possibly remote) typewriter, on which commands could be typed and the results printed automatically (e.g. "532 × 257" and "=" from the typewriter). This calculator was not programmable, but was able to print the numerical value of the answer. From the user interface point of view, this machine can be regarded as the predecessor of current computers that use a keyboard as an input interface. In terms of usage, remote calculation by extension of electric wires is also assumed, and it is considered to be a rudimentary system such as the current online system that uses communication lines. Furthermore, in a 1920 paper on electromechanical arithmometers, the necessity of representing continuous numbers as finite discrete values for processing and judgment in several automatic machines has been pointed out. This corresponds to current digital processing. Torres had many ideas that were very advanced at the time.

Other inventions and later career

Leonardo Torres Quevedo (1917). Portrait by Joaquín Sorolla at the Hispanic Society of America in New York City.

In addition to the aforementioned inventions, Torres patented, among others, the "Coordinate Indicators" (1900) to orientate in the populations by a mechanical system of signals, the "Dianemologo" (1907) for taking speeches without a stenographer, "Deformable Fusiform Balloons" (1914), and "Railway interlocks" (1918) to protect the movement of trains within a certain area. On 30 July 1913, he designed the "Buque-Campamento" ("Camp-Vessel"), to transport airships in which the mooring post would constitute a link device between nautical and aeronautical. Torres offered his invention to Vickers Limited, but they did not accepted it. In 1918 he built in Bilbao an innovative catamaran (conceived as a bimaran) with a metal hull, which he patented in 1916 under the name of "Binave".

In the last years of his life, Torres turned his attention to the field of pedagogy, to investigate those elements or machines that could help educators in their task. From 1922 to 1930 he made improvements on typewriters, marginal pagination of manuals, and others such as the "Puntero Proyectable" ("Projectable Pointer"), and the "Proyector Didáctico" ("Teaching Projector"). The Projectable Pointer is based on the shadow produced by an opaque body that moves close to the projected plate, being this shadow used as a pointer. To do this, he designed an articulated system that allowed the speaker to move a point or points next to the projection plate, at will, which made it possible to mark the areas of interest on the transparency. The Teaching Projector improved the way slides were placed on glass plates for projection.

Legacy

The wise Spanish engineer Torres Quevedo - today a foreign associate of our Academy of Sciences - who is perhaps the most prodigious inventor of our time, at least in terms of mechanisms, has not afraid to tackle Babbage's problem in turn.

What prospects do such marvels open on the possibilities of the future as regards the reduction to a purely mechanical process of any operation obeying mathematical rules!" In this field, the way was opened, nearly three centuries ago, by the genius of Pascal; in recent times, the genius of Torres Quevedo has succeeded in making it penetrate into regions where one would never have dared to think a priori that it could have access.

Institute of Physical and Information Technologies “Leonardo Torres Quevedo“ (ITEFI), Madrid.

After Torres passed away in 1936, the distressing circumstances that Spain was going during the Civil War meant that his death would go somewhat unnoticed. However, such personalities as the French mathematician Maurice d'Ocagne praised his great scientific and research work, giving conferences in Paris and Brussels.

In 1941, the architect Ricardo Fernandez Vallespín was commissioned the project and realization of a large building with his name in Madrid for house the new Institute of Applied Physics. The construction works concluded in 1943. Its dedicated to "designing and manufacturing instruments and investigating mechanical, electrical and electronic problems", and was the germ of the current Institute of Physical and Information Technologies "Leonardo Torres Quevedo" (ITEFI).

In the years following his death, Torres was not forgotten. In 1953 took place in Spain the commemorative acts of the Centenary of his birth, with the intervention of high-ranking academic, scientific and university personalities from the country and abroad.

IEEE Milestone Plaque dedicated to the Telekino of Torres Quevedo at the Technical University of Madrid.

In 1983, the Leonardo Torres Quevedo National Research Award [es] was established to recognize the merits of Spanish scientists or researchers.

In 2007, the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated a Milestone in Electrical Engineering and Computing to the Telekino, based on the research work developed at Technical University of Madrid by Prof. Antonio Pérez Yuste, who was the driving force behind the Milestone nomination.

On 28 December 2012, Google celebrated his 160th birthday with a Google Doodle.

On 8 August 2016, the Centenary of the Niagara Aerocar was commemorated for its uninterrupted operation, without having had any accidents, which was the axis of the “Torres Quevedo Year 2016”, to remember and vindicate his figure.

Awards

Torres receiving the Echegaray Medal at the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences in 1916.

Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso XII (1906)
Echegaray Medal of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences (1916)
Parville Award by the French Academy of Sciences (1916)
Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III (1921)
Grand Cross of the Military Order of Saint James of the Sword (1921)
Commander of the Legion of Honour (1922)
Honorary doctorate by the University of Paris (1923)
Honorary doctorate by the University of Coimbra (1925)
Grand-Cross Band of the Order of the Spanish Republic (1934)

Selected works

"Un sistema de camino funicular aéreo de alambres múltiples" (1887)
Memoria sobre las máquinas algébricas, Revista de Obras Públicas (1894)
Machines algébriques, Association pour l'Avancement des Sciences (1895)
Machines á calculer, Paris, Academy of Sciences (1900)
"Perfectionnements aux aerostats dirigibles" (1902)
"Systéme dit Télékine pour commander à distance un mouvement mécanique" (1902)
"Improvements in Mooring Arrengements for Airships" (1911)
Ensayos sobre Automática. Su definición. Extensión teórica de sus aplicaciones, Revista de la Academia de Ciencias Exacta (1913)
Arithmometre Electromechanique, Bull. de la Societe d Encouragement for l'Industrie Nationale (1920)