雙語暢銷書《艾倫圖靈傳》第8章:水銀延時線(113)
Everyone had been slow to adjust to the realities of the post-war period.
In expecting the Post Office to cooperate on the delay lines, Alan had been as unrealistic as any of the administrators.
在期待與郵政實驗室合作開發延遲線時，圖靈與那些領導一樣異想天開。And yet it was still extraordinary that as late as May 1948 there was no sign of any start being made on the construction of the control circuits.
另外，直到1948年5月，控制電路仍然連一點影子都沒有搞出來。
This failure could not be laid at Alan's door: to see that plans were implemented was the job, and indeed the only raison d'être, of the administrators.
但這個失敗不能歸咎於圖靈，這個計劃的實施，是領導們的工作，而且幾乎是領導們唯一的工作，是他們存在的唯一意義。But perhaps Darwin never really wanted a computer, just as the Admiralty had not really wanted to know where German ships were.
可是，達爾文從來沒有真正地想要造出一臺計算機，正如海軍從來沒有真正地想要知道，德國的軍艦在哪裏。The 'support' of Travis and the Ministry of Supply had not in fact made any difference to the bureaucratic inertia.
來自特拉維斯和軍需部的"支持"，沒有對這種官僚主義產生任何影響。Darwin and Womersley had played at being commissars while Alan remained the humbler worker and peasant.
達爾文與沃默斯利始終是主角，而圖靈一直都是個打下手的。If he had been given his head, the project might well have gone adrift.
實際上，即使圖靈回來，繼續付出全部智力，這個項目仍然可能會隨風而散。He probably underestimated the technical difficulty of running pulses at the rate of a million a second, and overestimated his own engineering knowledge.
他可能會高估自己的工程能力，從而低估微秒級脈衝的工藝難度。He would have interfered in too much detail, annoying people who would not like being lectured on their own jobs.
他也可能會涉及太多的細節，而其他人並不希望自己的工作被指手劃腳。He would have had no idea of how to pull off a deal for the right equipment, how to flatter someone into doing the job the way he wanted, or how to play off one expert against another. He had no management skills.
他可能不知道怎樣申請需要的設備，不知道如何奉承那些他需要的人。他也不懂得管理技巧。But he was not given a chance to make a mess of it for himself, as was his right as the creative worker. And basically his approach was on the right lines, for in the end every successful computer project had to solve the problem of integrating 'mathematical' and 'engineering' skills, which was exactly what he longed to do.
不過，圖靈並沒有給自己機會來出這些醜，他的基本思想是正確的，他尋求"數學"與"工程"的協調配合，後來每一個成功的計算機項目，都做到了這一點。
