雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(135)

Alan replied to Jack:

圖靈回信給傑克：

Sept 18 48

1948年9月18日

Dear Jack,

親愛的傑克，

I am glad to hear my estimate of no. of neurons is not too essentially wrong.

很高興我對神經元數量的估計沒有差得太遠。

The chess machine designed by Champ and myself is rather on your lines.

我和晨設計的下棋機，主要是根據我的想法，

Unfortunately we made no definite record of what it was, but I am going to write one down definitely in the next few days with a view to playing the Shaun-Michie machine.

但是很不幸，我沒有把那些想法明確地寫出來，不過我打算過幾天寫一寫與肖恩和米奇的機器對戰的感受。

To a large extent I agree with you about 'thinking in analogies',

總體來說，我同意你關於"類比"的想法，

but I do not think of the brain as 'searching for analogies' so much as having analogies forced upon it by its own limitations ...

但我不認爲大腦是在"尋找類比"，而是由於某種內在的限制，導致它不得不進行類比……

The report was handed in. Mike Woodger was very excited by the prospects it opened up, and gladly drew the diagrams neatly for the typed version.

圖靈的那篇報告已經提交了，麥克·伍格很激動，並愉快地爲它製作了一份清晰的打印版。

Darwin was less impressed, probably highly embarrassed by the references to Dorothy Sayers, God, and robots taking country walks.

達爾文的反應卻很平淡，也許他就像多羅西·塞耶斯一樣，對"機器人去鄉間散步"之類的事情感到十分尷尬。

At the Executive Committee meeting on 28 September he explained sniffily that 'Dr Turing had now produced a report which, although not suitable for publication, demonstrated that during his stay there he had been engaged in rather fundamental studies.'

在9月28日的執行委員會會議上，他嗤之以鼻地說："圖靈博士這段時間做了一些基礎性研究，並寫了一份報告，但卻不太適合發表。"

The unsuitable paper disappeared into the NPL files.

這份不太適合發表的論文，被埋沒在國家物理實驗室的檔案櫃裏。

Ironically, it was on 20 September 1948 that von Neumann gave a first published lecture on the 'theory of automata'—in effect, the theory of discrete controlling machines—in which he drew attention, after eleven years, to the fundamental importance of the Universal Turing Machine.

諷刺的是，1948年9月20日，馮·諾伊曼舉辦了第一場關於"自動機理論"的公開講座（實際上可以稱爲"離散靜態機理論"），在其中他強調，通用圖靈機具有非常本質的重要性。