雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(74)
After trying and failing to find a post office so that he could mail his sweater and pullover to his mother, who took in his non-shrink washing, he boarded the Queen Elizabeth that evening.
This visit to the land of Oz was a very pale reflection of the liaison of just four years before.
四年之後他又來到了這片綠野仙蹤，去拜訪那些單調乏味的工人。The conference had brought together almost every conceivable interested American party, but Alan was the only British participant.
這場座談會，集合了幾乎所有與計算機相關的美國人注，圖靈則是唯一的英國人。
He played a large part in the discussions.
他在這場座談中，扮演了很重要的角色，For example, he discussed the cathode ray tube storage proposals made by J.W. Forrester and J.A. Rajchman, the latter being responsible for development of the Iconoscope at RCA.
他評論了J·W·弗來斯特和J·A·拉奇曼關於陰極射線管存儲器的提議，後者正在美國無線電公司負責開發光線攝像管。His discussion was in characteristic style, taking an engineering problem and locating a point of abstract principle that lay behind it:
圖靈的評論具有他一貫的風格，也就是用抽象的理論來討論工程問題：Dr Turing: I do not know whether I should really ask my question of Dr Rajchman or Dr Forrester, because this difficulty arises in both papers.
圖靈博士說：我不知道是否應該向拉奇曼博士和弗萊斯特博士重申我的問題，因爲這個問題已經在兩份論文中提出過了。Dr Forrester mentioned that there was a possibility of reconstituting the charge by use of low velocity electrons and said that Dr Rajchman would explain it in his paper.
弗來斯特博士提到了通過低速電子來刷新電荷的可能性，並且說拉奇曼博士將會在他的論文中對此給出詳細的解釋。I understand from Dr Forrester that the method should be applicable to his type of storage.
弗來斯特博士認爲該方法對於他的存儲器來說是可行的，But there seems to me to be a fundamental difficulty which in principle amounts to this:
但我認爲這裏面似乎存在着一個根本性的困難。unless the storage medium has some kind of association with the granular structure, such a method cannot be applicable because if any one such pattern is stable,
除非這種存儲介質具有顆粒狀結構，否則這種方法將不可行，因爲對於任何一個穩定的狀態來說，如果它是穩定的，then by a symmetry argument, by a slight shift one way or the other, as it were, a slightly different configuration is also stable.
那麼將它改變一個任意微小量而得到的狀態就同樣是穩定的。Thus you do not get a finite number of stable configurations, but an infinite number.
因此，你無法給出一個有限的穩定狀態數，相反，這個數將是無限的。
