雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第9章:退隱山林(56)

Then he came back and could ask questions about the presents before choosing them, and here the game of bluff and double bluff came in, for one of the presents would secretly be designated 'Tommy' and once Tommy was chosen, the turn was finished.

然後那個人回到房間，他可以先提一些相關的問題，然後從這些禮物中選擇一件，遊戲的關鍵就在這裡，其中一件禮物，會被祕密地設定為"機關"，如果他恰好選擇了機關，這一局就結束了。

The imaginary presents moved after a while into a more probing realm.

這些想象中的禮物，很是令人玩味，

Alan tentatively dropped 'Tea in Knightsbridge Barracks' into the game at one point, perhaps reflecting fantasies of twenty years before.

圖靈有一次提出了"騎士橋軍營的茶葉"，這也許反映了他20年前的渴望。

The Manchester computer had, in its unexpected and back-handed way, realised one of the products of his imagination.

曼徹斯特計算機，也是他的一個渴望，雖然是以他不希望的方式實現的。

There still remained other dreams; no less hard to fulfil; no less liable to go awry.

他還有很多其它的夢想，但卻是同樣地虛無飄渺，同樣地枝節橫生。

The arrangement at Manchester was that the university engineers were to build a prototype machine, which Ferranti would use as 'the instructions of Professor F.C. Williams', So throughout 1949 the engineers, who were now able to recruit more staff, were adding to the original 'baby machine'.

按照計劃，曼徹斯特大學的工程師會建造一臺模型機，然後弗蘭蒂公司會以此作為"威廉姆斯教授的要求"。1949年一整年，工程師們一直都在對原始的"嬰兒機"進行擴充套件。

By April it had been fitted with three more cathode ray tubes for fast store, multiplier and 'β-tube', and by that time a small magnetic drum was being tested. Another change was that each line on the cathode ray tube store now held forty spots, an instruction taking up twenty of them.

到4月時，他們又增加了三條陰極射線管，以達到更高的儲存和乘法速度，還有一個小型的磁鼓裝置，正在進行測試。另一項改變是，現在每條陰極射線管組成的"線"可以儲存40個點，每條指令佔用20個點，

These were conveniently thought of as grouped in fives, and a sequence of five binary digits as forming a single digit in the base of 32

每5個點被劃分成一組，儲存5個二進位制位，表示一個32進位制的數字。

Meanwhile Newman made an ingenious choice of problem with which to demonstrate the machine as it stood with only a tiny store but with a multiplier.

但在演示這臺機器時，紐曼選擇了一個很不明智的例子。這臺機器的儲存容量還非常小，

It was something that had been discussed at Bletchley—finding large prime numbers.

但紐曼選擇了一個在布萊切利曾經討論過的問題——尋找大素數。

In 1644 the French mathematician Mersenne had conjectured that 217-1, 219-1, 231—1, 267-1, 2127- 1, 2257- 1 were all prime, and that these were the only primes of that form within the range.

在1644年，數學家推測217-1、219-1，231-1，267-1，2127-1，2257-1（圖，平方號，後面還有）都是素數，而且是這個範圍內僅有的這種形式的素數。

In the eighteenth century, Euler laboriously established that 231 — 1 = 2,146,319,807 was indeed prime, but the list would not have progressed further without a fresh theory.

到了18世紀，尤拉艱難地證明了231-1=2, 146, 319, 807確實是個素數，但如果沒有新的理論來支撐，這種方法無法走得更遠。