评论
打印
This particular argument arose because Alan had become involved in a problem of numerical analysis, the work done in Goodwin's section.
这场争论，是关于图灵涉足的一个古德温部门的数值分析问题。
In 1943 the statistician H. Hotelling had analysed the procedure for solving simultaneous equations (or, roughly equivalently, for inverting a matrix) and his result made it appear that errors would grow very rapidly as successive equations were eliminated.
1943年，统计学家H·霍特林分析了求解联立方程组的过程（或者可以粗略地看成求解矩阵的逆），他表明随着等式的消除，误差会迅速增长。
If this were so it would undermine the practical usefulness of the ACE.
如果这个结论成立，那它将会影响ACE的实际效用。
Goodwin's section, being directly concerned with the problem, had attacked it heuristically in 1946 by solving a set of eighteen equations that had come up in an aerodynamic calculation, and Alan had joined in (notably the least competent at the detailed work), on the desk machine exercise.
古德温的部门正在直接研究这个问题，他们在1946年通过解一个空气动力学的18元方程组，试图推翻该结论，图灵也用台式计算器参与了这项工作（值得注意的是，他本来最不擅长这类工作）。
To their surprise, they found the final errors to be remarkably small.
出乎他们意料的是，他们发现结果的误差小到完全可以忽略。
Alan had undertaken a theoretical analysis of why this should be.
图灵写了一篇文章来证明为什么会是这样。
It was a typical Turing problem, needing a fresh attack, and with a concrete application. He tackled it much as he had developed a theory of probability for use at Bletchley.
这是典型的图灵作风，他一定要反复推敲，并且亲自证明一切，正如他在布莱切利搞出来的概率理论。
This work of course, did not lie far in the past, and he set Mike Woodger some probability problems, including the one about the 'barrels of gunpowder'.
当然，他的概率工作并没有沉睡在历史中。图灵交给麦克·伍格一些概率问题，包括一个关于"炸药桶"的问题。
There was also professional contact arising out of wartime work.
同时，当年的战时工作，还为现在促成了一些专业上的沟通：
Jack Good and Newman had made a visit to the ν PL—Newman, of course, being interested in setting up his Manchester computer project—and Jack had managed to disprove Alan's assertion that no one could write an instruction table that was free from error at the first attempt.
杰克·古德和纽曼拜访了国家物理实验室。纽曼自然对他的曼彻斯特计算机项目感兴趣，杰克则推翻了图灵的论断，图灵认为没有人能够写出毫无错误的指令表。
Jack Good had also written a short book on Probability and the Weighing of Evidence, effectively setting out the theory they had employed at Bletchley, though not its more advanced applications.
杰克·古德写了一本书，叫《概率论与证据权重》，充分地总结了他们在布莱切利提出的理论，尽管没有提出什么新的应用。
The 'sequential analysis' method was, as it happened, soon published in America by the statistician A. Wald,18 who had developed it independently for the testing of industrial components.
"序列分析"方法刚一出现，就被统计学家A·瓦德在美国发表了，他为了检验工业零件而独立地提出了这个方法。
Alan, in contrast, published nothing that came of his Bletchley work, except in the less direct sense that almost everything he was doing was flowing from his wartime experience added to his pre-war theory of machines.
与此相反，图灵没有为他在布莱切利的工作发表任何东西，他战时的实践经验和战前的机器理论全都随风而去，只在他脑中留下了一些思考。
