雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第3章:思考什麼是思考(11)

A very tall, patriarchal figure, Alfred Beuttell dominated his two sons, of whom Victor was the elder. In his character Victor took more after his mother, who in 1926 had published a curious pacifist, spiritualist book. He combined her bright-eyed, rather magical charm, with his father's strong good looks. In the 1920s Alfred Beuttell had gone back into research into lighting, and in 1927 had taken out patents on a new invention, the 'K-ray Lighting System'. It was designed to allow uniform illumination of pictures or posters. The idea was to frame a poster in a glass box, whose front surface would be curved in such a way that it reflected light from a strip light at the top exactly evenly over the poster. (Without such a reflection, the poster would be much brighter at the top than at the bottom.) The problem was to find the right formula for the curvature of the glass. Alan was introduced to the problem by Victor, and suddenly produced the formula, without being able to explain it, which agreed with Alfred Beuttell's calculation. But Alan went further, and pointed out the complication which arose through the thickness of the glass, which would cause a second reflection at the front surface. This made necessary a change in the curve of the K-ray System, which was soon put into application for exterior hanging signs, the first contract being with J. Lyons and Co. Ltd., the catering chain.

阿爾弗雷德·別特爾個子很高，很有威嚴，他有兩個兒子，維克托是長子。維克托的性格大部分像他母親，他母親在1926年出版過一本關於和平主義者和唯心主義者的書。他兼具母親明亮的眼神，奇妙的魅力，以及他父親帥氣的外表。20年代時，阿爾弗雷德·別特爾又開始研究照明，1927年取得一項新發明的專利，“K射線照明系統”。這項發明是爲了讓圖片或海報得到均勻一致的照明。想法是把海報放在一個玻璃框裏，框的表面是弧形的，反射頂部燈管的光，使光線均勻地照在海報上。（如果沒有這樣的反射，海報的頂部會比底部更亮）。但這裏有一個問題是，如何爲玻璃計算最合適的孤度。維克托想到了一個方程，但卻無法證明，他把這個問題交給艾倫。結果艾倫想得更加深入，他指出玻璃的厚度會引起更加複雜的問題，也就是表面會引起第二次反射。這使K射線系統的曲面做了重要的修改，並很快應用到外牆懸掛牌匾上。第一筆訂單，是來自里昂斯有限公司。

It was characteristic. As with the iodate and sulphite calculation, it always delighted Alan that a mathematical formula could actually work in the physical world. He had always liked practical demonstrations, even though he was not good at them, and although pushed into the corner as the intellectual 'maths brain', did not make the error of considering thought as sullied or lowered by having a concrete manifestation.

就像碘酸鹽和亞硫酸鹽的計算一樣，數學公式在自然界中的應用，總是令艾倫愉快的。他總是喜歡實用的證明，雖然他對此並非很擅長。

There was a parallel development, in that he did not permit the Sherborne 'games' religion to instil in him a contempt for the body. He would have liked to have been as successful with corpus as with mens, and found the same difficulties with both: a lack of coordination and ease of expression. But he had discovered by now that he could run rather well. He would come in first place on the house runs, when rainy weather obliged the cancellation of all important Footer. Victor would go out with him for runs, but after two miles or so would say 'It's no good, Turing, I shall have to go back', only to find Alan overtaking him on the return from a much longer course.

在另一方面，艾倫拒絕舍爾伯尼向他灌輸對肉體的排斥。他希望學術和感情同步發展，並且發現這兩件事具有共同的困難：他無法協調而自然地表達自己。但是，他發現自己很擅長跑步。每當下雨天，宿舍取消例行的跑步時，他總會第一個出去跑。維克托也會和他出去一起跑，但是大約兩公里以後，他說“我不行了，圖靈，我得回去了”，然後他在返回的路上，會被跑了更遠才返回的艾倫超越。