Ideally, the state apparatus would all be in the form of machines, but until that could be achieved, it would have to be embodied in the brains of human beings—brains in which the information could not be erased, in which it might be combined with unknown data and instructions, and which when off duty could transport it into unknown places.

在理想的状态下，国家事务应该以一种机器的形式运行，但在这个目标实现之前，它只能运行在人们的头脑中——而头脑中的信息，是不可擦除的，而且它可以与无法预料的信息组合起来，还可以转移到无法预料的地方去。

The problem facing the state was compounded by the fact that science had not yet made it possible to read the thoughts of a person who did not choose to reveal them. People remained dangerously unpredictable.

对政府来说，这是一个很严重的问题，因为科学技术无法读取或控制人的内心想法，而这些无法预料的想法是非常危险的。

Brilliant but unsound, the scientists had won the wizard war and become the priests and magicians of the modern world.

科学家们漂亮地打赢了战争，一举成为了现代世界的巫师，但这并不完美，因为他们是不可靠的。

Yet if wars could be won by magic machines, incomprehensible to military men and administrators, then they could also so be lost. Success and danger were opposite sides of the same coin.

但是就算是机器，也同样存在着危险。收益与风险，永远是一枚硬币的两面。

Once disdained, then treated with a patronising awe, the scientists of the 1930s had bailed out the Allied governments.

科学家们对于政治的态度，从蔑视转向敬畏，他们在绝境中救了盟国的命。

Making themselves indispensable, they had won an enhanced position—but at the cost of innocence.

因此提高了自身的地位，但也牺牲了自己的纯粹。

The political meaning of science had changed, and the climate of the 1950s was one in which contradictions ignored in the 1930s were being forced to the surface.

科学的意义，开始变得政治化，这是30年代留下的一个被忽视的矛盾，而正是这个矛盾造就了50年代的环境。