The analogy with cryptanalysis is even closer in that the crystallographer attacks the problem, at first sight too enormous for contemplation, by making a hypothesis about the structure of the crystal.

与密码分析更为相似之处在于，结晶学家在处理这个问题时，会首先对晶体的结构进行假设。

Thus Watson and Crick pursued the DNA analysis, as did Pauling, by making good guesses about the helix structure, and thus getting closer and closer to the solution.

就像沃森和克里克在研究DNA时，假设了螺旋形的结构，然后再缩小范围，逐渐逼近真正的解。

This is essentially the same idea as the 'Probable Word' method, which also effects a drastic reduction in the number of possible keys—

这在本质上与"有可能的明文"是出于同样的想法，后者也可以急剧地缩小有可能的密钥范围，

so that with the Enigma, for instance, they were left only with a small number of Bombe 'stops' to try out for sensible German plain-text.

比如说对于谜机，他们根据炸弹机少量的停机，就能试验出合理的德文明文。

It is not surprising that Alan Turing could see how to quantify the idea of information required for a guess to be possible: this was very close to the quantification of 'weight of evidence' which constituted his major conceptual advance at Bletchley.

图灵能够量化地计算所需的信息量，这也是在意料之中的，这与他在布莱切利提出的"证据权重"非常接近，而这正是他当时的核心想法。

Shannon was sceptical about this programme of work, and Shannon had a good point.

香农非常怀疑这项实验的有效性，而且他有很充分的理由。

By 1977 computer calculations would show that among the first seven million zeroes of the zeta function, there is not one that lies off the special line.

后来到了1977年，更加深入的计算机实验证明，黎曼ζ函数的前700万个零点，没有一个是脱离那条特殊直线的。

This was a case where a brute force attack could yield only a negative result.

这是暴力穷举方法的一个负面例子。