Pioneers

Leonardo Torres Quevedo

Robotics

Citation Formats

General Reference

Computing Atlas. "Leonardo Torres Quevedo." Accessed August 31, 2026. https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/pioneers/leonardo-torres-quevedo.

APA Style

Computing Atlas. (n.d.). Leonardo Torres Quevedo. Retrieved August 31, 2026, from https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/pioneers/leonardo-torres-quevedo

BibTeX

@misc{computingatlas-leonardo-torres-quevedo,
  author = {Computing Atlas},
  title = {Leonardo Torres Quevedo},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/pioneers/leonardo-torres-quevedo},
  note = {Accessed August 31, 2026}
}

Leonardo Torres Quevedo was a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, and inventor who developed numerous engineering innovations related to aerial trams, airships, catamarans, and remote control, and who was also a pioneer in the fields of computing and robotics. In the 1890s he focused his efforts on analog computation; from his Laboratory of Automatics established in Madrid in 1907 he built El Ajedrecista in 1912, an electromagnetic device capable of playing a chess endgame, and he designed a special-purpose electromechanical calculator that conceptually foreshadowed floating-point arithmetic.

Facts

Birth Year

1852 1

Birth Date

1852-12-28 1

Death Year

1936 1

Death Date

1936-12-18 1

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Leonardo Torres Quevedo

Wikimedia FoundationLead section

Quote, Lead section

Leonardo Torres Quevedo (28 December 1852 – 18 December 1936) was a Spanish civil engineer, mathematician, and inventor who developed numerous engineering innovations related to aerial trams, airships, catamarans, and remote control. He was also a pioneer in the fields of computing and robotics. In the 1890s, Torres focused his efforts on analog computation. From his Laboratory of Automatics established in Madrid in 1907, Torres built El Ajedrecista (The Chess Player) in 1912, an electromagnetic device capable of playing a chess endgame, and he explored theories of thinking machines and designed a special-purpose electromechanical calculator that conceptually foreshadowed floating-point arithmetic.

View the Source

1. Wikipedia: Leonardo Torres Quevedo

Wikimedia FoundationInfobox, Born

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