雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第9章:退隱山林(81)

In the course of a few hours, there are hundreds, all sticking together and all very minute; so that the whole mass looks like the heap of soap bubbles which one blows by putting the pipe under the surface of the soap suds.

幾個小時過後，就會有成百上千個細胞粘在一起，每個都很小，看起來就像一團肥皂泡，漂在水面上。

From this sphere of cells, Brewster explained, the animal would take shape:

布魯斯特從細胞的角度繼續講解，動物是如何成形的：

If it is an animal like ourselves, this body stuff, before it becomes a body, is a round ball. A furrow doubles in along the place where the back is to be, and becomes the spinal cord.

這團東西在成形之前，是一個圓圓的球。在即將成爲背部的地方，有一條溝會不斷分裂，最後長成脊髓。

A rod strings itself along underneath this, and becomes the back-bone.

在它的周圍，則會形成脊椎。

The front end of the spinal cord grows faster than the rest, becomes larger, and is the brain. The brain buds out into the eyes.

脊髓的前面一端，比其它地方長得更快、更大，最終形成大腦。大腦會長出眼睛。

The outer surface of the body, not yet turned into skin, buds inward and makes the ear.

身體的表面將會長成皮膚，然後長出耳朵。額頭向下生長形成臉龐。

Four outgrowths come down from the forehead to make the face. The limbs begin as shapeless knobs, and grow out slowly into arms and legs. ...

四個沒有形狀的小塊，慢慢地往外長，最後變成了手臂和腿……

Alan had thought about embryology all the time, fascinated by the fact that how such growth was determined was something 'nobody has yet made the smallest beginning at finding out.'

圖靈一直在思考胚胎學，他想知道生長的祕密，這是任何人都不曾知道的祕密。

There had been little advance since Growth and Form, the 1917 classic that he had read before the war.

他在戰前曾讀過1917年出版的經典著作《生長與形狀》，而這個領域在這本書之後，幾乎沒有任何進展。

The 1920s had made it possible to invoke the Uncertainty Principle to suggest that life was intrinsically unknowable, like the simultaneous measurement of position and velocity in quantum mechanics.

在20年代，不確定性原理表明，從本質上講，生命是無法獲知的，正如在量子力學中，位置和速度不能同時測量。

As with minds, there was an aura of religion and magic around the subject that attracted the attention of his scepticism.

至於思維，其宗教和魔法的光環，則引起了圖靈更深的懷疑。

It was a fresh field.

這是一個全新的領域。

The greatest puzzle was that of how biological matter could assemble itself into patterns which were so enormous compared with the size of the cells.

最奇怪的是，這種生物過程，如何能把微小的細胞，組合成如此巨大的結構？