雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:面朝大海(232)

The Russian mathematician P.S. Novikov had announced42 that the 'word problem' for groups was indeed unsolvable by any definite method;

俄國數學家諾維科夫曾經宣佈，羣的字問題不存在任何確定的解法。

Alan's article explained this and tied it in with some questions in topology, showing that the problem of deciding whether some knot was the same as some other knot was essentially a 'word problem' of this kind.

圖靈在文章中詳細地解釋了這個結論，並把它和拓撲學聯繫起來，表明某些拓撲學問題本質上就是羣的字問題。

It was up to date, and looked forward to the complete proof of the Russian result becoming available.

圖靈的這篇文章，使俄國數學家的結論得到了完整證明。

He was interested in solving problems up to the end。

這是一項重要進步，圖靈總是喜歡把問題解決到底。

A last letter of May 1954 to Robin discussed certain ideas of Robin's for 'getting round the Godel argument' but ended with:

1954年5月，在圖靈寫給羅賓的最後一封信中，圖靈評論了羅賓的一些關於哥德爾定理的想法，並在結尾寫道：

'Looked at the rainbow problem again. Can do it rather successfully for sound, but total failure for electricity. Love, Alan.'

“再想想那道彩虹吧，用聲學可以解釋，用電學卻不行。愛着你的，圖靈。”

When out walking together in Charnwood Forest, near Leicester, they had seen an unusual double rainbow, a phenomenon that Alan insisted on analysing. There had to be a reason for it.

有一次，他們在萊斯特附近的樹林裏散步，遇到了一道不同尋常的雙層彩虹。圖靈後來花了很多時間分析這道彩虹，他一定要找到其中的原因。