雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第4章:彼岸新星(22)

Ciphering would be a very good example of a 'definite method' applied to symbols, something that could be done by a Turing machine.

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密碼，是一個把機械過程應用到符號的好例子，可以用圖靈機來實現。

It would be essential to the nature of a cipher that the encipherer behave like a machine, in accordance with whatever rules had been fixed in advance with the receiver of the message.

因爲密碼的本質，編碼者必須按照事先與接收者約定的規則，像機器一樣工作。

As for a 'most general code or cipher possible', in a sense any Turing machine could be regarded as encoding what it read on its tape, into what it wrote on the tape.

從某種角度說，任何圖靈機都可以看成是通用的密碼，它把紙帶上讀到的東西處理一番，然後再寫回紙帶上。

However, to be useful there would have to be an inverse machine, which could reconstruct the original tape.

可是，要讓它有用，還必須要有一個相反的機器，可以重新復原出原來的紙帶。

His result, whatever it was, must have started on these lines.

不管艾倫想要怎麼做，他必定要從這裏入手，

But as for the 'particular and interesting codes' he offered no further clue.

至於特殊、有趣的密碼，他現在也沒有更多的想法。

Nor did he touch again on the conflict indicated by the word 'morality': what was he to do?

圖靈夫人並無道德上的糾結，

Mrs Turing, of course, was a Stoney; she assumed that science existed for the sake of useful applications, and she was not the person to doubt the moral authority of His Majesty's Government.

她是斯托尼家族的成員，認爲科學就是爲了利益而存在的，她也毫不懷疑女王政府的道德權威。

But the intellectual tradition to which Alan belonged was quite different.

但艾倫繼承的是不同的傳統，

It was not only for the detachment of Cambridge, but for a very significant section of modern mathematical opinion that G.H. Hardy spoke when he wrote:

不光是因爲劍橋的清高，也因爲G.H.哈代說過一個對現代數學意義重大的觀點：