双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第4章:彼岸新星(104)
日期:2017-11-23 10:43

(单词翻译:单击)

10^34 is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – a number comparable with the number of elementary particles in a large building.
10^34就是10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,这个数大约是组成一个大型建筑的原子的数量。
But 101034 is far bigger: as 1 followed by 1034 zeroes it would require books with the mass of Jupiter to print it in decimal notation.
101034是一个更大的数,它是1后面跟着1034个0,这可能需要海量的纸才能在十进制下把它写出来,
It could be thought of as the number of possible man-made objects.
你可以想象这是人类有史以来制造的所有物体的总数。
Skewes' number was much bigger again, as 1 followed by 101034 zeroes!
斯奇乌斯数则是一个更更大的数,1后面跟着101034个0!
In actual fact mathematicians had certainly thought about numbers far larger than these,
事实上,数学家们肯定也想到过比这还大的数,
here we have only gone through three stages of growth, but it is not difficult to make up a new notation to express the idea of going through ten such stages, or 1010, or 1010; or of regarding even these as just the first step in a process of super-growth,
因为这里只不过进行了3层指数运算,我们可以轻易地进行10层,1010层,101010层,甚至把这些作为一个增长的步骤,
and then defining super-super-growth, and then....
然后定义一种超级增长,然后超级超级增长,然后……
Such definitions, indeed,had already played a role in the theory of 'recursive functions', one of the other approaches to the idea of 'definite method' which had been found equivalent to thet of the Turing machine.
这种定义,实际上就用到了递归函数,这是等价于图灵机的另外一种研究机械过程的工具。
But Skewes' number was certainly remarkably large for a problem which could be expressed in such elementary terms.
无论如何,在我们一般的角度看来,斯奇乌斯数已经大得惊人了。
Certainly one attraction to Alan of the New Statesman would have been its exceptionally demanding puzzle column.
很明显,《新政客》的一个吸引艾伦的原因是它的解谜专栏。

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