雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第4章:彼岸新星(7)

The correspondence of ideas was quite straightforward, since Church had used a definition (that of a formula being in normal form) which corresponded to the Turing definition of 'satisfactory' machines, and had then used a Cantor diagonal argument to produce an unsolvable problem.

這兩個想法的共同點是很明顯的，丘奇定義的規範形式，相當於圖靈定義的可用機器，而且他們都使用了康託對角線，以產生一個解決不了的問題。

If he had been a more conventional worker, he would not have attacked the Hilbert problem without having read up all of the available literature, including Church's work.

如果艾倫是個遵守規則的學者，他在解決希爾伯特問題之前，就應該讀首先遍所有的相關文獻，包括丘奇的工作。

He then might not have been pre-empted—but then, he might never have created the new idea of the logical machine, with its simulation of 'states of mind', which not only closed the Hilbert problem but opened up quite new questions.

這樣就不會出現被別人搶先的問題，但他也就永遠無法創造出圖靈機了。圖靈機不僅解答了希爾伯特的問題，而且提出了新的問題——思維狀態。

It was the advantage and the disadvantage of working as what Newman called 'a confirmed solitary'.

紐曼所說的孤芳自賞，不是個好事，但也未必是壞事。

Both with the Central Limit Theorem and with the Entscheidungs problem, he had been the Captain Scott of mathematics, coming in a splendid second place.

無論是中心極限定理，還是判定性問題，艾倫都扮演了數學界的斯科特船長，總是排在第二名。

And while he was not the person to think of mathematics and science as a sort of competitive game, it was obviously a disappointment.

令人感嘆的是，艾倫本人並不把數學和科學看成一種競爭。

It meant months of delay, and obscured the originality of his own attack.

他可以毫不在乎地拖延好幾個月，也不屑於強調自己的獨創性，

It confused his moment of coming out into the world.

他從降生的那一刻起，就註定要凌亂這個世界。