The correspondence of ideas was quite straightforward, since Church had used a definition (that of a formula being in normal form) which corresponded to the Turing definition of 'satisfactory' machines, and had then used a Cantor diagonal argument to produce an unsolvable problem.
这两个想法的共同点是很明显的，丘奇定义的规范形式，相当于图灵定义的可用机器，而且他们都使用了康托对角线，以产生一个解决不了的问题。
If he had been a more conventional worker, he would not have attacked the Hilbert problem without having read up all of the available literature, including Church's work.
如果艾伦是个遵守规则的学者，他在解决希尔伯特问题之前，就应该读首先遍所有的相关文献，包括丘奇的工作。
He then might not have been pre-empted—but then, he might never have created the new idea of the logical machine, with its simulation of 'states of mind', which not only closed the Hilbert problem but opened up quite new questions.
这样就不会出现被别人抢先的问题，但他也就永远无法创造出图灵机了。图灵机不仅解答了希尔伯特的问题，而且提出了新的问题——思维状态。
It was the advantage and the disadvantage of working as what Newman called 'a confirmed solitary'.
纽曼所说的孤芳自赏，不是个好事，但也未必是坏事。
Both with the Central Limit Theorem and with the Entscheidungs problem, he had been the Captain Scott of mathematics, coming in a splendid second place.
无论是中心极限定理，还是判定性问题，艾伦都扮演了数学界的斯科特船长，总是排在第二名。
And while he was not the person to think of mathematics and science as a sort of competitive game, it was obviously a disappointment.
令人感叹的是，艾伦本人并不把数学和科学看成一种竞争。
It meant months of delay, and obscured the originality of his own attack.
他可以毫不在乎地拖延好几个月，也不屑于强调自己的独创性，
It confused his moment of coming out into the world.
他从降生的那一刻起，就注定要凌乱这个世界。