Alan Turing（阿兰·图灵）

Alan Turing
阿兰·图灵

英文来源:http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=8&threadID=185688&start=0&tag=nl.e101

Author: nielb
作者：nielb

翻译：Purple Endurer

2005.12.16 第1版

I've just watched a drama on the BBC about the life of Alan Turing. Turing, if anyone can claim this, was the inventor of the digital computer. Turing addressed the problem of how to reduce any formula to a set of simple instructions which could be used by a machine to mimic the logic performed by the human brain. Turing’s solution was to use the binary system to represent both numbers and logical operations, which could be fed, via punched tape or some other medium, into a mechanical device which he called the 'Universal Turing Machine'. He went over to the USA and conducted a large amount of this work at Princeton where he was awarded a PhD in Logic.
我刚在BBC上看了关于阿兰·图灵（Alan Turing）的一生的戏剧，无论任何人是否能承认，他是数字计算机的发明人。图灵从事如何将公式精减成一个简单指令集，这些指令可以被机器用来模仿人脑逻辑。图灵的解决方法是使用二进制系统来表示数字和逻辑操作，可以通过穿孔带或者其它媒介流入他称之为“通用图灵机”的机械设备。他去美国并在他被授予逻辑学博士学位的普林斯顿（Princeton）实施了大量这样的工作。

《Purple Endurer注：1。feed into 流入,注入
2。go over  (渡过...)转变, (对...进行)仔细检查, 润色, 复习
3。PhD 博士学位；获得博士学位者 (Doctor of Philosophy) 》

He returned to Britain during WWII, when he was one of the main members of the group that decoded messages passed between the German military command and the front line encoded by the Enigma machine. Turing was instrumental in decoding the Enigma - using a machine of his own design called the 'Bombe'. Amongst other things, this enabled the position of German U-boats in the North Atlantic to be predicted, thereby allowing allied convoys to avoid them. I've no idea how many lives this saved but it must have been a lot.
二战时他返回大不列颠，当时他是破译在德国军事司令部和前线之间传递的、使用Enigma加密的信息的主要成员之一。图灵是有助于破译Enigma的-使用他自己设计的、称为“甜点心”（Bombe）的机器。在其他事件中，这使德国北大西洋潜艇（U-boats）的位置被预计了，从而使盟国护航船队避开它们。我不知道这拯救了多少生命，但这一定有很多。
《Purple Endurer注：1。Bombe<法>n.(冰淇淋或奶油冻等做的)瓜形(或球形、杯形)甜点心 》

He was awarded an OBE in 1946.
他在1946年被授予OBE（英帝国勋章?）。
《Purple Endurer注：1。OBE
1. =Office of Business Economics (美国)(商务部)商业经济管理局
2. =Officer of the British Empire 获英帝国勋章的军官》

After the war, he continued to develop his ideas on computing, and at Manchester University in 1948 helped to set up what was probably the world’s first successful prototype computer.
战后，他继续发展其计算思想，并于1948年在曼彻斯特大学（Manchester University）帮助装配了可能是世界最早成功的原型计算机。

Turing was gay but neither flaunted nor made any secret of it. While working in Manchester he started an affair with a young man he met at a gay venue. A friend of the young man burgled Turing’s house one night, and in the subsequent police investigation Turing naively spoke of having had sexual relations with the burglar’s friend. Sex between men, even in private, was still a criminal offence in Britain in the 1950’s. Turing was not sent to prison but he suffered the humiliation of having the details of his private life exposed in the newspapers, and was forced to undergo oestrogen hormone treatment as a 'cure' for his homosexual urges. All this treatment did was trigger depression. It was probably a combination of this depression, the stress of public exposure and the loss of his security clearance which led him to take his own life – by eating an apple laced with cyanide – in 1954. He was 41.
图灵是同性恋者，但既不招摇也不保守秘密。在曼彻斯特工作时，他开始和一个在同性恋者聚会上遇见的年青人恋爱。那个年青人的一位朋友在一个晚上到图灵家偷窃，在随后的警察调查中，图灵天真地说到曾经与这个夜盗的朋友有性关系。在19世纪50年代的大不列颠，男人间的性，即使是隐私，仍然是刑事罪。图灵没有被送进监狱，但他遭受了隐私生活在报纸上曝光的羞辱，并被迫忍受作为治疗同性恋冲动的雌激素荷尔蒙处理。这个处理引发了消沉。可能是在消沉、公开曝光和损失安全的联合作用，导致他自杀了-服用带氰化物的苹果-在1954年。他41岁。
《Purple Endurer注：1。speak of  谈及, 说到
2。loss of 损失
3。take his own life vi.自杀》

I don't really know why I'm posting this but I just felt so damn sorry for the treatment that this man got in my country and I'm just wondering what he might have achieved for all of us if he'd lived to 81.
我真不知道我为什么发这篇文章，但是我就是为这个人在我国受到的处理感到 如此的谴责和报歉，我就是想知道如果他活到81岁，可能为我们完成什么。