双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第9章:退隐山林(26)
日期:2019-10-11 14:57

(单词翻译:单击)

But Max Newman wrote to The Times to correct the impression left by Alan's heady prophecies, dousing them with a laborious explanation of the Mersenne prime problem.
不过M·纽曼给《时代》致信,纠正了图灵令人冲动的预言,并说了一些关于梅森素数问题的解释。
Jefferson proved a good publicity agent for Manchester, for The Times published photographs of the adolescent machine, and the Illustrated London News followed on 25 June. By chance, these happened to upstage the grand opening of the EDSAC in Cambridge.
杰弗逊为曼彻斯特做了一次很好的宣传,因为《时代》刊登了那台年轻机器的照片,6月25日的《伦敦图闻》也刊登了,这碰巧抢了剑桥EDSAC的运行仪式的风头。
Wilkes'team had made rapid progress, and had already completed the building of an EDVAC-type computer, with mercury delay line storage, well ahead of any American development.
威尔克斯的团队进展也很迅速,他们造出来一台类似于EDVAC的计算机,并采用水银延迟线作为存储器,这比美国的任何项目都更为先进。
It had a storage capacity of only thirty-two delay lines, and its digit time was two microseconds, twice that of the planned ACE. But it worked.
虽然它只有32条延迟线,每位数据耗时2微秒,是ACE计划的两倍,但它至少是一台真正能运行的机器。
and if the 'baby machine' at Manchester was the first working electronic stored program computer, the EDSAC was the first to be available for serious mathematical work.
如果说曼彻斯特的“婴儿机”是世界上第一台能运行的存储程序式电子计算机,那么EDSAC就是世界上第一台可以正式用于数学研究的计算机。
Alan attended the inaugural conference, and gave a talk on 24 June 1949 entitled Checking a Large Routine, He described a sophisticated procedure, appropriate for long programs in which it would be easy to lose track of the fate of numbers in store.
1949年6月24日,图灵出席了EDSAC的运行仪式,并做了一个题为《控制大型程序》的报告。他给出了一套巧妙的方法,用于控制那些容易丢失数据的长程序。
Illustrating his points, he did some sums on the blackboard, and lost everyone by writing the numbers backwards as he was used to doing at Manchester.
为了阐明他的想法,他转头在黑板上做了大量的演算,这时他就像是在曼彻斯特一样,把整个世界都抛到脑后了。
'I do not think that he was being funny, or trying to score off us,' wrote Wilkes, 'it was simply that he could not appreciate that a trivial matter of that kind could affect anybody's understanding one way or the other.'
威尔克斯说:“我觉得他并不是故意在表演,也不是故意无视我们,他只是没有意识到,这些过于琐碎的细节会影响别人的理解。”
It was a 'fussy little detail', which perhaps masked the irony of the fact that while the EDSAC people had only begun to write programs in May 1949, soon discovering the idea of the sub-routine, Alan had been writing and perhaps checking them for years.
然而,“这些过于琐碎的细节”,可能掩饰了一个有点讽刺的事实:EDSAC的研究人员到1949年才开始写程序,然后想到了“子程序”的想法,而图灵在很多年前就做到了这些,并且进行了大量的论证。
Meanwhile the ACE did survive after all.
与此同时,ACE项目又起死回生了。
Alan had resigned at the lowest ebb, Then Thomas, who was in charge of the electronics, resigned, and his successor, F.M. Colebrook, proved to have a very different attitude.
图灵辞职的时候,正是这个项目最艰难的时候,在那之后不久,托马斯(负责电子工程的那位)也辞职了,而他的继任者F·M·克尔布鲁克则有着完全不同的风格。
In fact, as soon as Thomas was gone, the mathematicians moved into the engineers'building, Thanks to Colebrook an unheard-of relaxation took place, and the two groups were soon working together in a sort of assembly line.
托马斯一走,数学家们就搬进了工程楼,克尔布鲁克带来了一个前所未有的局面,两个队伍很快就融合到了一起,像联合战线一样工作。

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