雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第2章:下一個星期(33)
Rupert Morcom, the elder son, had entered Sherborne in 1920, and had won a scholarship in science to Trinity College, Cambridge; he was now engaged in research at the Technische Hochshule in Zurich. Like Alan he was an avid experimenter, but one with the advantage that his parents had been able to construct a laboratory for him at home. His younger brother, who also had the use of the laboratory, now told Alan of all this, exciting great envy.
他們的大兒子拉普特.默卡，於1920年進入舍爾伯尼，後來獲得了劍橋大學三一學院的研究獎學金，現在蘇黎世的一家科研機構從事科研。和艾倫一樣，他是一個勁頭十足的實驗者，但他更有優勢，他父母能在家裏給他建一個實驗室。他的弟弟，也就是把這一切告訴艾倫的人，也能使用這個實驗室，這令艾倫感到很嫉妒。
In particular, Christopher told Alan about an experiment that Rupert had taken up before going to Cambridge in 1925. It concerned a chemical effect which Andrews often used to draw the interest of the younger boys. By chance it involved Alan's old favourite, iodine. Solutions of iodates and sulphites, when mixed, would result in the precipitation of free iodine, but in a rather striking way. Alan later explained: 'It is a beautiful experiment. Two solutions are mixed in a beaker and after waiting for some very definite period of time, the whole suddenly becomes a deep blue. I have known it take a time, 30 secs., and then turn blue in 1/10 of a sec. or less.' Rupert had been investigating not the easy problem of working out the recombination of ions, but that of explaining this time delay. It required a knowledge of physical chemistry, and an understanding of differential equations, both beyond the school syllabus. Alan wrote:
克里斯朵夫給艾倫講了拉普特1925年去劍橋之前做的一個實驗，這是一個安德魯經常用來吸引注意力的化學反應，而且涉及到艾倫的最愛――碘。碘溶液和亞硫酸鹽溶液放在燒杯裏混合，會使碘以一種特殊的狀態析出沉澱。艾倫評論：“這是一個漂亮的實驗。兩種溶液在燒杯裏混合，等待一定的時間，整個突然變成深藍色。我知道它需要30秒，然後再在0.1秒之內變成淺藍。”拉普特研究的，不是簡單的離子重組問題，而是如何延長這個變化時間。這需要物理化學的知識，還有對很多公式的理解，這些都在學校大綱之外。艾倫說：
Chris and I wanted to find a relation between the time and the concentrations of the solutions and thereby verify Rupert's theories. Chris had already done some experiments upon it. We were looking forward very much to the experiment. The results unfortunately did not agree with theory and I made more experiments during the following holidays and invented a new theory. I sent the results to him and so we started to write to one another in the holidays.
我和克里斯想知道時間與沉澱之間的關係，並證明拉普特的理論。克里斯已經做了一些相關實驗，我們對這些實驗期望很高，但結果卻很不幸地與理論不相符。在接下來的假期裏，我做了更多實驗，並提出了一個新理論。我把結果寄給他，於是我們在假期開始通信了。
He did more than write to Christopher – he invited him to Guildford. Ross, as housemaster, would have been horrified by this audacious step.25 Christopher replied26 (after some delay) on 19 August:
他不光給克里斯朵夫寫信，他還邀請他到格爾福特來。羅斯如果知道這件事，一定會被這樣的大膽行爲嚇暈。克里斯朵夫在8月19日的回信（稍微拖了幾天）中寫道：
… Before getting on to experiments I must thank you very much for your invitation to come and stay with you, but I am afraid I shall not be able to come as we are going away somewhere, probably abroad for about three weeks, just at that time … I am sorry not to be able to come; it is very kind of you to ask me.
……在談實驗之前，首先謝謝你邀請我去和你一起住，但我恐怕去不了，因爲我那時剛好要去另一個地方待三個星期左右，也許是國外……很抱歉來不了，謝謝你的邀請。
