雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第4章:彼岸新星(21)
But for Alan, who was excluded from the smarter circles of Cambridge society for his lack of sophistication, the more straightforward approach was an attraction.
In that way America suited him–but not in other respects. To his mother, he wrote on 14 October:
從這一方面來說，美國很適合艾倫，但僅僅是在這一方面。10月14日，艾倫寫信給母親：Church had me out to dinner the other night. Considering that the guests were all university people I found the conversation rather disappointing.
丘奇前幾天晚上帶我出去吃晚餐。同座都是大學的人，我覺得交談挺令人失望的。
They seem, from what I can remember of it, to have discussed nothing but the different states they came from.
他們基本上只談他們來自哪個州，沒有別的內容，Description of travel and places bores me intensely.
還聊了一些旅行景點，反正我覺得十分無聊。He enjoyed the play of ideas, and in the same letter he let slip a hint of ideas in which Bernard Shaw himself might have found a plot:
他喜歡思維的遊戲，在這封信中，他隱隱地提到了一個想法，也許蕭伯納會認爲這是一個陰謀：You have often asked me about possible applications of various branches of mathematics.
你經常問我數學的各個分支有什麼用。I have just discovered a possible application of the kind of thing I am working on at present.
我剛剛發現，我現在的研究可能有一種用處。It answers the question 'What is the most general kind of code or cipher possible', and at the same time (rather naturally) enables me to construct a lot of particular and interesting codes.
它讓我認識到什麼是最通用的加密方法，它使我能夠構造很多特殊、有趣的密碼。One of them is pretty well impossible to decode without the key, and very quick to encode.
其中有一種的加密速度非常快，而且如果沒有密鑰是不可能解開的。I expect I could sell them to H.M. Government for quite a substantial sum, but am rather doubtful about the morality of such things. What do you think?
我想以可觀的價錢把它賣給英國政府，但不知道這是否有違道德。你怎麼想呢？
