双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第3章:思考什么是思考(75)
日期:2017-01-28 08:27

(单词翻译:单击)

In any case, it was becoming more and more clear that Princeton was the new G?ttingen;
不管怎么说,普林斯顿越来越明显地成为了新的哥廷根。
there was a flow of first-rate mathematicians and physicists to and fro across the Atlantic.
那里汇集了大西洋两岸一流的数学家和物理学家,
It was an aspect of the continuing transfer of power from Europe, and from Germany in particular, to America.
来自欧洲,特别是德国的重要力量,源源不断地转移到美国。
No one who wanted to do something, as Alan did, could any longer ignore the United States.
像艾伦这样想做一番事业的人,再也不能忽视美国这片土地了。
Alan continued work in group theory during 1935.
1935年,艾伦继续研究群论,
He also thought of working in quantum mechanics, and approached R.H. Fowler, Professor of Mathematical Physics, for a suitable problem to work on.
同时也思考量子力学,并联系R.H.福勒(数学物理的教授),要一个合适的课题来研究。
Fowler suggested trying to explain the dielectric constant of water, one of his favourite research topics.
他最喜欢的一个课题,是福勒建议他尝试解释水的介电常数。
But Alan made no progress.
但是,艾伦在这方面并没有做出进展。
And this problem, as indeed the whole field of mathematical physics, which offered so much to attract the ambitious young mathematicians of the 1930s, was put aside.
这个问题,还有吸引了30年代野心勃勃的年轻数学家们的整个数学物理领域,都被他暂时放到一边了。
For he had seen something new, something at the centre of mathematics, something at his centre.
因为他看到了新鲜的、在数学核心、在他的思维核心的东西。
It owed almost nothing to the Tripos; it used only the commonest in Nature.
这个问题几乎不需要剑桥的学位,它只用到了自然界中最普通的常识,
It was profoundly ordinary, and yet led to a spectacular idea.
尽管它如此普通,但却引出了一个雄伟的想法。
It had become his habit to run long distances in the afternoons, along the river and elsewhere, even as far as Ely.
艾习惯于下午沿着康河长跑,有时候甚至一直跑到依利。
It was at Grantchester, so he said later, lying in the meadow, that he saw how to answer Hilbert's third question.
他后来说,那天是在格兰彻斯特,他躺在那里的草地上,想到了如何回答希尔伯特的第三个问题。
It must have been in the early summer of 1935.
那一定是1935年的初夏。
'By a mechanical process', Newman had said. So Alan Turing dreamed of machines.
纽曼说“用一个机械的过程”,于是艾伦·图灵就想到了机器。
'For, of course, the body is a machine.
“显然,我们的身体就是机器。
It is a vastly complex machine, many, many times more complicated than any machine ever made by hands; but still after all a machine.'
它是一个非常复杂的机器,比人工制造的机器要复杂许多倍,但它毕竟还是机器。”
Such was Brewster's paradoxical assertion.
这是布鲁斯特的模棱两可的说法。
At one level, the body was living, not a machine.
从某种角度来说,身体是活的,它不是机器。
But at another, more detailed level of description, that of the 'living bricks', it was all determined.
但从另一个角度来说,更加走近了看,看到那些“小砖块”,似乎就像一个机器了。
It was not the power of the machine that was the point of the remark; it was its lack of will.
但问题并不在于机器的蛮力,而是在于机器没有思维。
It was not the determinism of physics, or chemistry, or of biological cells, that was involved in Hilbert's question about decidability.
希尔伯特的可判定性问题,并不是指物理、化学,或生物细胞的决定论。

分享到