双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第3章:思考什么是思考(66)
日期:2017-01-08 08:01

(单词翻译:单击)

Meanwhile to the New Statesman, Hitler’s rancour at the Treaty of Versailles only vindicated what Keynes and Lowes Dickinson had always said.
在这个时期,对《新政客》来说,希特勒对凡尔赛条约的仇视,印证了凯恩斯和狄更生总说的话。
The difficulty was that being fair to Germany now meant making concessions to a barbarous regime.
问题是,现在对德国公平,就意味着对暴行让步。
Conservative opinion, however, perceived the new Germany in terms of a balance of nation states, in which it was a renewed potential threat to Britain, but also a strong ‘bulwark’ against the Soviet Union.
保守的观点是,新的德国对英国来说,是一个潜在的威胁,但它同时也是一个对抗苏联的堡垒。
It was in this context that the Cambridge Anti-War movement revived in November 1933. Alan wrote:
1933年11月,剑桥再度掀起反战热潮。艾伦写道:
12/11/33
33年11月12日
There has been a lot happening this week.
这周有一些事情。
The Tivoli Cinema had arranged to shew a film called ‘Our Fighting Navy’ which was blatant militarist propaganda.
帝威利电影院安排播放《我们英勇的海军》,这明显是军事家的鼓吹。
The Anti-War movement organized a protest.
反战组织进行了抗议活动,
The organization wasn’t very good and we only got 400 signatures of which 60 or more were from King’s.
但不是很顺利,一共收集了400个签名,60几个来自国王学院。
The film was eventually withdrawn, but this was on account of the shindy that the militarists made outside the cinema when they had heard of our protest and had got it into their heads that we were going to break up the Cinema.
电影到了后来,谁也不说话了,因为主战派知道了我们的抗议,听说我们想中断电影,就守在了电影院门口。
A further comment, that ‘There was a very successful Anti-War demonstration yesterday’, referred to the Armistice Day wreath-laying ceremony, which this year had more the flavour of a political statement.
还有一个评论,是他认为在停战日的花环典礼上的反战示威很成功。
This was not wholly pacifist in spirit.
艾伦的想法并不是完全的和平主义,
Alan’s friend James Atkins had decided that he was a pacifist, and Alan himself that he was not.
他的朋友詹姆斯·阿特金斯是一个和平主义者,但艾伦并不是。
But very influential was the suggestion that the First World War had been whipped up by the self-interest of the armament manufacturers.
但是,军火商对第一次世界大战的自私的推崇,对他产生了很大影响。
There was great feeling, in which probably Alan shared, that glorification of weapons should not be allowed to make a second great war more likely.
他有一种强烈的感觉,不应该因为对武力的赞颂,来制造第二次大战。
It was Eddington, who as a Quaker was a pacifist and internationalist, who stimulated the next outward and visible step in Alan’s career.
爱丁顿,一个贵格会教徒,一个和平主义者和国际主义者,他将艾伦的生涯推进到下一步。
This time it was not in connection with the ‘Jabberwocky’ of quantum mechanics, but through his course of lectures on the methodology of science which Alan attended in the autumn of 1933.
这次不是关于量子力学的“无意义的话”,而是关于科学方法论的讲座,艾伦在1933年秋天参加了该讲座。
Eddington touched upon the tendency of scientific measurements to be distributed, when plotted on a graph, on what was technically called a ‘normal’ curve.
爱丁顿谈到测量结果的分布,以及它的图象,术语叫作“正态曲线”。
Whether it was the wingspans of Drosophilae, or Alfred Beuttell’s winnings at Monte Carlo, the readings would tend to bunch around a central value, and die away on either side, in a specific way.
比如说,果蝇的翼展会趋向于一个中心值,并且以一种特定的方式,向两端逐渐消失。
To explain why this should be so was a problem of fundamental importance in the theory of probability and statistics.
为什么这会这样,是概率与数理统计中的一个关键问题。
Eddington offered an outline of why it was to be expected, but this did not satisfy Alan, who, sceptical as ever, wanted to prove an exact result by rigorous pure-mathematical standards.
爱丁顿给出了一份大纲,解释为什么会这样,但这不能满足艾伦。艾伦和以往任何时候一样,抱着一种怀疑态度,他要通过严格的纯数学标准,给出一个精确的证明。
By the end of February 1934 he had succeeded.
1934年2月底,他成功了。
It did not require a conceptual advance, but still this was the first substantial result of his own.
这并不是一个开拓性的成果,但这是他的第一个独立提出的有影响的成果。
Typically, for him, it was one that connected pure mathematics with the physical world.
尤其是,对他来说,这就是一个联系纯数学和物质世界的方法。
But when he showed his work to someone else, he was told that the Central Limit Theorem, as the result was called, had already been proved in 1922 by a certain Lindeberg.
但是,当他向别人展示这项成果时,别人告诉他,中心极限定理已经在1922年被林德伯格证明了。
Working in his self-contained way, he had not thought to find out first whether his objective had already been attained.
艾伦只按自己的想法工作,他并没有先看看他的目标是否已经被实现了。
But he was also advised that provided due explanation was given, it might still be acceptable as original work for a King’s fellowship dissertation.
但别人建议他,如果附一个解释,也许仍然可以用来申请国王学院的研究员。
From 16 March to 3 April 1934, Alan joined a Cambridge party to go skiing in the Austrian Alps.
1934年,从3月16日到4月3日,艾伦参加一个剑桥的活动,去奥地利的阿尔卑斯山玩滑雪。
It had a vaguely Quaker, internationalist link with Frankfurt University, whose ski-hut near Lech on the Austro-German border they used.The flavour of cooperation was soured by the fact that the German ski coach was an ardent Nazi.
靠贵格会的一些关系,他们可以使用法兰克福大学在奥德边境的莱西附近的滑雪小屋。
On his return, Alan wrote:
在他回来的路上,艾伦写道:
… We had a very amusing letter from Micha, the German leader of the skiing party … He said ‘… but in thoughts I am in your middle’…
……我们收到了一封有趣的米查的来信,他是滑雪党的德国那边的领导……他说“……但我的思想与你们在一起……”

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重点单词
  • conservativeadj. 保守的,守旧的 n. 保守派(党), 保守的人
  • organizedv. 组织
  • glorificationn. 赞颂
  • tendencyn. 趋势,倾向
  • originaladj. 最初的,原始的,有独创性的,原版的 n. 原件
  • amusingadj. 有趣的,引人发笑的
  • substantialadj. 实质的,可观的,大量的,坚固的 n. 重要部份
  • demonstrationn. 示范,实证,表达,集会
  • contextn. 上下文,环境,背景
  • ceremonyn. 典礼,仪式,礼节,礼仪