双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第6章:连接两个世界(17)

Then on his side, Shannon had Also independently thought about logical machines.

而在艾伦看来，香农对机器逻辑也有独到的想法。

From 1936 to 1938 he had been working on the differential analyser at MIT, and had designed a logical apparatus with relays in connection with a particular problem.

从1936年到1938年，香农一直在研究麻省理工学院的差分机，并设计了一种重要的、基于继电器的逻辑设备，

This in turn had led him to write a paper in 1937 which drew the connection between the 'switching' operations of electromagnetic relays, and Boolean algebra—hence doing this just as Alan was designing his electric multiplier at Princeton.

还在1937年写了一篇论文，关于继电器的开关操作与布尔代数之间的关系。他的做法，非常类似于艾伦在普林斯顿做的乘法机。

Alan showed Computable Numbers to Shannon, which he read, immediately impressed.

艾伦给香农看了《可计算数》，他读过之后，留下了非常深刻的印象。

They also discussed the idea implicit in Computable Numbers, an idea of which they were independently convinced.

他们还讨论了《可计算数》中体现的思想，他们分别出于不同的理由，而坚信这种思想。

Shannon had always been fascinated with the idea that a machine should be able to imitate the brain;

香农经常被机器模拟大脑的想法所吸引，

he had studied neurology as well as mathematics and logic, and had seen his work on the differential analyser as a first step towards a thinking machine.

他不但学习数学和逻辑，同时还学习神经学，并且将差分机看作实现思想机器的第一步。

They found their outlook to be the same: there was nothing sacred about the brain, and that if a machine could do as well as a brain, then it would be thinking—although neither proposed any particular way in which this might be achieved.

他们的基本观点是一致的，那就是大脑并非神圣不可侵犯，如果一台机器具有与大脑一样的工作原理，那么这台机器就同样具有思维。