双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第9章:退隐山林(98)

In April 1951 he had another look at the word problem for groups, and came up with a result which J.H.C. Whitehead at Oxford found 'sensational'—but it was never published.

1951年，图灵从另一个角度，思考群的词问题，并得到了一个结果。牛津的怀特海认为，这是一个轰动性的成果，但图灵却从未把它发表出去。

Max Newman kept him interested in topology, and he went to seminars.

纽曼继续支持图灵研究拓扑学，图灵参加了一些这方面的研讨会，

But the trend of postwar pure mathematics was moving away from his interests.

但是总得来说，他已经渐渐与纯数学的发展脱节了。

Mathematics was flowering through a greater and greater abstraction for its own sake, while Caliban on his island remained somewhere in between the abstract and the physical.

数学在抽象海洋中一浪高过一浪，但这位半兽人，却只想待在自己的小岛上，他的小岛，处在抽象和实体之间的某个地方。

Nor was he a keen conference-goer, loathing the academic chitchat, but he went to the British Mathematical Colloquia that Max Newman helped to get started.

他并不热衷于参加会议，他很讨厌学术圈里那些扯淡的事情，但他还是参加了纽曼主办的英国数学座谈会。

In spring 1951 he went with Robin to one at Bristol, which got him interested in discussing topology with the mathematician Victor Guggenheim.

1951年春天，他和罗宾一起前往布里斯托，参加这个座谈会，并在会上饶有兴致地与数学家维克托·古根海姆讨论了一些拓扑学。

But these were only diversions.

但这只是他的一种消遣。

Another diversion was offered by the BBC, whose new highbrow Third Programme was offering a series of five talks on computers.

还有一种消遣方式，是由BBC提供的。BBC制作了一套关于计算机的访谈节目，一共五期，

One was by Alan, the others by Newman, Wilkes, Williams and Hartree.

这五期节目的嘉宾，分别是图灵、纽曼、威尔克斯、威廉姆斯和哈特里。

Alan's went out on 15 May 1951 and was entitled 'Can Digital Computers Think?'.

图灵的那期节目，在1951年5月15日播出，主题是《数字计算机能思考吗？》，

Largely it ran over the ground of the universal machine and the imitation principle.

主要是关于他的通用机模型和模仿原则。

There were some references to the 'age-old controversy' of 'free will and determinism', which harked back twenty years with a mention of Eddington's views on the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics, and back ten years with some suggestions on how to incorporate a 'free will' element in the machine.

图灵提到了自由意识和决定论的古老论战，提到了爱丁顿，提到了量子力学的不确定性，还提到了他自己对于机器的"自由意识"的想法。