双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第8章:水银延时线(12)
日期:2019-03-23 19:19

(单词翻译:单击)

After this flight of fancy, very typical of his conversation, he discussed various more serious proposals for storage,
在这段天马行空之后(这是他的典型风格),图灵又讨论了各种各样更为靠谱的存储方案,
and commented that 'the provision of proper storage is the key to the problem of the digital computer.'
并且说道,数字计算机的关键,就是合适的存储设备:
In my opinion this problem of making a large memory available at reasonably short notice is much more important than that of doing operations such as multiplication at high speed.
我认为,最关键的问题不是如何执行乘法之类的运算,而是如何实现高速的大容量存储。
Speed is necessary if the machine is to work fast enough for the machine to be commercially valuable,
如果机器要足够快才有商业价值,那么高速就是必须的,
but a large storage is necessary if it is to be capable of anything more than rather trivial operations.
如果机器的功能不光是基本运算,那么大容量就是必须的。
The storage capacity is therefore the more fundamental requirement.
因此,存储能力是更为基础的需求。
He then continued to give a succinct definition of 'building a brain':
接着,他给"建造一个大脑"做了一个简明的定义:
Let us now return to the analogy of the theoretical computing machines with an infinite tape.
现在,让我们回到无限纸带的理论计算机。
It can be shown that a single special machine of that type can be made to do the work of all.
不难证明,一台特殊的机器,可以实现所有的功能,
It could in fact be made to work as a model of any other machine.
也就是说,它可以模拟任何其它机器,
The special machine may be called the universal machine; it works in the following quite simple manner.
这种特殊的机器称为通用机。通用机的原理很简单:
When we have decided what machine we wish to imitate, we punch a description of it on the tape of the universal machine.
我们想让它模拟何种机器,就在它的纸带上写入那种机器的描述数。
This description explains what the machine would do in every configuration in which it might find itself.
这个描述数规定了该机器在各种状态下应该做什么。
The universal machine has only to keep looking at this description in order to find out what it should do at each stage.
通用机只要一直根据这个描述数,来决定每个时刻应该做什么。
Thus the complexity of the machine to be imitated is concentrated in the tape and does not appear in the universal machine proper in any way.
因此,机器的功能是集中地体现在纸带上,而不是体现在通用机上。

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