双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第8章:水银延时线(105)
The winter was spent on various topics, none with all-absorbing attention.
The numerical analysis paper—the only published evidence of his ACE work—was finished in November.
11月，他完成了一篇关于数值分析的论文，这是他发表的唯一与ACE有关的东西。Most of all he wanted to understand more about 'thinking'. Somehow the brain did it—but how?
图灵更感兴趣的问题是"思维"，是大脑到底如何运转。
Contemporary physiologists had only the faintest ideas about neural stimuli and responses.
当时的心理学家，只能给出一些譬如神经刺激与反应之类的初级想法。He went to R.H. Adrian's lectures, but was disappointed.
图灵参加了R·H·艾德里安的讲座，但却很是失望。Chemistry and physics were at last pushing their way into biology, but his whole thesis lay in a different kind of description, the logical description of the nervous system, for which chemistry and physics were only the medium.
化学和物理被引入了生物领域，但是这套理论还存在着另一个层面的描述，即神经系统的逻辑描述，化学和物理仅仅是个载体。He conveyed his disappointment to Peter Matthews, a very sharp undergraduate, one of the few who had come to Cambridge at eighteen, with whom he went to the physiology lectures.
图灵对彼得·马修表达了他的失望，这是一位非常聪明的学生，也是极少数在18岁就进入剑桥的学生之一，是他陪同图灵参加了这个讲座。They would talk long over lunch and over mugs of cocoa in the evenings, since they lived on the same staircase.
自从他们住在同一楼后，他们经常在午餐时促膝长谈，或者是在晚上，伴着许多咖啡。Jim Wilkinson would visit Cambridge from time to time, and kept Alan informed as to the developments, or lack of them, back at Teddington. The news was that of cuts, crises, and an ever-narrowing vision.
威尔金森到剑桥来了好几次，把特丁顿的进展或障碍告诉图灵，基本上都是关于阉割、窘迫和窄视。At a meeting in November, they had abandoned many of the advanced ideas for the ACE, including the 'abbreviated code instructions'.
在11月的会议中，他们又删掉了ACE的很多先进思想，包括"助记指令码"。An edict from Darwin had stopped Huskey's Test Assembly, because of complaints from Thomas.
由于托马斯的抱怨，达尔文下令阻止了哈斯基的实验。The ACE section was reduced to the writing of a report on their numerical analysis and programming work.
本来好好的ACE项目，现在的目标却变成了写一篇报告就完事。
