雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第4章:彼岸新星(48)
At the time, it was a very striking and surprising fact, that three independent approaches to the idea of doing something in a definite way, had converged upon equivAlent concepts.
The second project concerned the 'new ideas in logic' for a doctoral thesis.
第二個項目，關於博士論文中的"邏輯學的新想法"，The basic idea was to see if there was any way in which to escape the force of Gdel's result that there would always be true but unprovable assertions within arithmetic.
總體上就是看看有沒有什麼辦法，能夠逃脫哥德爾的力量。
This was not a new question, for Rosser, now at Cornell, had produced a paper16 in March 1937 which took it up.
這其實並不是一個新問題，因爲羅瑟（現在在康奈爾大學）已經在1937年3月寫了一篇關於這個問題的論文。But Alan planned a rather more general attack on the question.
但艾倫打算在這個問題上發動一場更猛烈的進攻。His third project was a very ambitious one, for he had decided to try his strength on the central problem of the theory of numbers.
第三的項目是很有野心的，艾倫想在數論的核心問題上施展一番拳腳。It was not a new interest, for he had possessed Ingham's book on the subject since 1933.
這並不是個新興趣，早在1933年，艾倫就在讀英哈姆關於該領域的文獻。But in 1937 Ingham sent him some recent papers, on learning that he wished to make an attack himself.
在1937年，英哈姆給他寄了一些新的論文，他看了之後，便打算在挑戰一下自己。It was ambitious because the question he chose was one that had long absorbed and defeated the greatest pure mathematicians.
說這個項目很有野心，是因爲艾倫選擇的問題，長久以來吸引並套牢了許多偉大的數學家。Although the prime numbers were such ordinary things, it was easy to pose quite baffling questions about them in a few words.
素數是個很平常的東西，但卻產生了一系列莫名其妙的問題。
