VIP Visitors
Anatoly Karpov, world chess champion 1975–85 and
1993–99, visited the William Herschel Telescope in November 2002 (see picture
on the right), accompanied by the presidents of the chess federations of
La Palma and of the Canary Islands. A few days earlier, he played 18 simultaneous
matches in Gran Canaria, half of them via internet with opponents on other
islands. The La Palma challenger was Chris Benn, manager of the William Herschel
Telescope (the sponsors of the event wanted somebody in a remote location),
playing from a computer in the observatory with members of the local chess
federation acting as referees. Having 18 times as long as Karpov to think
about each move was encouraging, but by move 15, Karpov’s pieces had somehow
taken over the centre of the board. Then Chris made a weak move, and Karpov
very rapidly demolished his defences and checkmated on move 24. He won the
other 17 games too. Other VIP visitors were Josep Piqué (Spanish Science
and Technology Minister), Annejet Meijler (director of the Physical Science
Council of NWO) and Richard Wade (Director of PPARC’s Programmes).
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Email contact: Javier
Méndez (
jma@ing.iac.es)
