雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第4章:彼岸新星(4)
So Alan was able to submit his paper on 28 May 1936 to the London Mathematical Society for publication in its Proceedings, and Newman wrote to Church:
Dear Professor Church,
親愛的丘奇教授：An offprint which you kindly sent me recently of your paper in which you define 'calculable numbers', and shew that the Entscheidungs problem for Hilbert logic is insoluble, had a rather painful interest for a young man, A.M. Turing,
你最近寄給我的定義可算數、並證明希爾伯特判定問題無解的那篇論文，強烈地吸引了這裏的一位年輕人。
here, who was just about to send in for publication a paper in which he had used a definition of 'Computable numbers' for the same purpose.
他叫A.M.圖靈，他也正準備發表一篇論文，其中他定義了可計算數，並解決同樣的問題。His treatment—which consists in describing a machine which will grind out any computable sequence—is rather different from yours, but seems to be of great merit,
他描述了一種機器，可以計算任何可計算序列，與你的方法不一樣，但看起來非常有力。and I think it of great importance that he should come and work with you next year if that is at all possible. He is sending you the typescript of his paper for your criticisms.
我認爲，如果有可能的話，明年他應該過去和你一起工作。他將會給你寄去他的論文，供你評論。If you find that it is right, and of merit, I should be greatly obliged if you could help Turing to get to Princeton next year, by writing to the Vice-Chancellor, Clare College, Cambridge, in support of Turing's application for the Procter Fellowship.
如果你覺得他的成果是正確而有價值的，我希望你能給劍橋克萊爾學院的校監寫封信，支持圖靈申請寶潔獎學金，以便他明年可以去普林斯頓。If he fails to win this he can still just manage to come, I think, since he is a Fellow of King's College, but it would be a very tight fit.
如果他申請不到，也仍然可以過去，但是我覺得那就有點不合適了，因爲他還是國王學院的研究員。Is there any possibility of a small supplementary grant at the Princeton end?
在普林斯頓那邊，有沒有什麼助學資助呢？… I should mention that Turing's work is entirely independent: he has been working without any supervision or criticism from anyone.
……我要指出的是，圖靈的工作完全是獨立完成的，沒有任何人給予他任何指導或評論。This makes it all the more important that he should come into contact as soon as possible with the leading workers on this line, so that he should not develop into a confirmed solitary.
更重要的是，不能讓他孤芳自賞，他應該儘快與該研究方向的先驅學者取得聯繫。
