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发表于 2005-8-20 11:41:33
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12楼的翻译（初试身手，多多指教！）
Why donate your computer cycles to GIMPS? 为什么让您地电脑参与GIMPS（寻找梅森素数）的计算工作?
I included the following text in its entirety because I though it was one of the best personal arguments that I have ever read about why one should participate in GIMPS. Enjoy !!! 我搜集了以下完整文章，因为我想它们是让一个人参加GIMPS项目的最佳理由。而且我从来没有看到过如此精彩的观点。
Originally posted by Lumly 原创：Lumly
I could give you technical reasons for crunching for GIMPS, but I won't. Most people aren't interested in them, though they exist and are quite persuasive. I find the psychological reasons far more compelling because, in the end, these are the reasons you will stay with the project. 我可以为以一个技术性的介绍推荐您参加GIMPS的计算，但我不会这样做。很多人对这些项目并不十分感兴趣，尽管他们是善劝的。要使人们关注这类项目，我觉得心理因素很重要。心理上的满足会使人们参与到这些项目中去。以下是几个主要诱因。
Tell me something I don't know. 告诉我一些我不知道的。
There is something very gratifying about knowing the actual outcome of your work unit. A GIMPS client returns very definite results. If you trial factor an exponent successfully, it will not only tell you so but give you the factor that it found. If you Lucas-Lehmer test an exponent, you will know that it is, or isn't, prime because it actually tells you. 人们对工作单元（WU）的实际结果非常期待：会不会有新的梅森素数呢？GIMPS的客户端会将十分准确的计算结果送回服务器。如果您成功地从工作单位中检测到要素，程序不仅会告诉您这一信息，而且会把找到的要素显示出来。如果您用Lucas-Lehmer检测一个数学典型，您可以知道它究竟是不是梅森素数。因为软件事实上会告诉您的。
Results are forever. You can always refer back to them at any time. Twenty years down the road you will be able to state with certainty that you proved that such-and-such a Mersenne number was composite. 结果是永久的。您可以随时提交它们。长此以往20年下来，您就可以发现诸如此类的梅森素数是成组出现的。
This is not the case of most other distributed computing projects. You will never have a screen that pops up and tells you that you just found E. T. You will endlessly process work unit after work unit and never will you be able to distinguish between the first one and the ten-thousandth. 这并不像其他的分布式计算一样。您的屏幕将不会突然告诉您您找到了E.T。您的计算机会不断地处理工作单元。您很难区分哪里是第一个，哪里是第一千个，一万个。这种计算是海量的。
Anthropomorphic personification. 情感的培养。
Crunching for distributed computing projects can be thrilling. Watching the number of work units you put out per day can make you excited about your throughput. The work pours in quickly and the results leave even faster. 当您成为分布式计算中的一员时，您一定会为它激动得颤抖起来！您一定会对您每天出产WU的数量感到十分兴奋和颇有成就感。工作像潮水般快速涌来，而上传似乎显得更快。
GIMPS is a different sort of project for it is slow and deliberate. The work units are so unlike most others projects’ that we don't even call them work units at all. We call them exponents or assignments because the term ‘work unit’ isn't personal enough.
GIMPS是一个不同于其他的分布式计算计划。它的工作是缓慢但严谨的。GIMPS的WU不像其他分布式计算的那样。我们不把所谓的工作单位称为WU，而是数学典型或任务。因为术语“WU”使人感到不够个人化。
With today’s computers these exponents can take anywhere between two days to two months to complete. Running a Lucas-Lehmer test on a 33M (a Lucas-Lehmer exponent that is in the thirty-three million range or, when expanded, is a ten million digit number) is an intimate process. You will probably have to trial factor it. Then it passes into L1 factoring stage 1, on to L1 stage 2, and finally it spends weeks on the Lucas-Lehmer testing. 当今的电脑完成一个任务最少2天，最多2个月。运行Lucas-Lehmer（一个Lucas-Lehmer指数是一个3千3百万位数，当它扩张以后，它是一个1千万位数的数字）测试的，运行3千3百万次的结果是最接近梅森素数的。您可能要检测它的要素。然后它将要进入L1第一阶段的因式分解，然后第二阶段。最后它将用数星期的时间进入Lucas-Lehmer测试。
All the while you watch it slowly mature. The exponent ceases to be a mathematical representation of an integer but instead takes on a life all its own. It is a life that you and your computer nourish with CPU cycles. Even though you know that only a tiny fraction of the Lucas-Lehmer test could possibly have been performed, you check on it several times a day just in case something goes wrong. You get to know it like a friend. You can recite it by number and you remember it long after the result of the test has been sent in to Prime Net. 计算的阶段是很慢的。经过分析的数学典型最终得出一条严谨的充满整数的代数式。这条式子呈现的是这个数学典型本身，是您和您的电脑的努力和计算的结果。甚至尽管您知道只有Lucas-Lehmer测试的一小部分完成，您都经常守候着结果，怕万一有什么出错。您甚至像了解朋友了解它，您十分关心它。您更可以把结果倒背如流因为您会经常想起它，尽管测试的结果已经送出去很久了。
No other distributed computing project comes close to this level of emotional attachment for the cruncher. The time invested on each exponent is what makes GIMPS special. It teaches the user patience and perseverance. Devotion and loyalty soon follow. 再也没有其他分布式项目能与计算者有如此深厚的情谊了。长时间的投入使得GIMPS显得特别。它锻炼志愿者的耐性，使他们坚定不移。同时，也让他们懂得热爱和忠诚。
It’s quiet... too quiet. 太闲适，这份工作太闲适了。
Another unique aspect of GIMPS is that you can use the client program to search for prime numbers completely on your own. You do not have to go through the server to get your assignments, nor do you have to use the manual web pages. GIMPS另一个独特的方面是GIMPS完全可以从用户自己的计算机查找素数。您不需要从服务器下载您的分配，也不需要使用手动的网络分配。
You can, at any time, test any exponent that you wish. The results will be reported to you in the normal fashion, at which point you simply test another one at your leisure. 您可以随时随地的测试任何一个您想测试的数学典型。所得结果将以正常形式告知您。GIMPS只在您空闲的时间检测数学典型。
This allows you to do your own search, testing your own range of exponents, building up your own data sheet of results with no one else the wiser. You can be like the mathematicians of old, working in solitude, hoping to find that one number that will put them in the history books. Should you find a one, you will be accredited, along with the project programmer who after all did write the application. 这允许您自己搜索，检测您自己的数学典型，以及您独力建立您自己的结果数据统计。您可以向老数学家一样独自工作，盼望着找到那将会载入史册的数字。您自己编译的程序将会被认可，您会找到这个数字的。
Alas, Horatio, I knew him well. 唉Horatio我对他太熟悉了。
The greatness of a distributed computing project isn't dependant on the kind of work it researches, but rather the quality of its client program. This is in turn influenced solely by the competence of the programmer behind it. 分布式计算项目的伟大之处不在于它的运算及搜索工作，而是分布式客户端程序的品质。这背后是程序员轮流编译的智慧结晶。
Some distributed computing projects have client programs that are rarely updated, or worse still, that are rewritten by the users because the programmer himself is not talented enough to handle the job. 有一些分布式计算项目的客户端程序很少升级，有些情况更差。有些志愿者甚至把程序自己重写。那是因为有些个程序员他自己没有足够的能力来胜任这份工作。
GIMPS’ George Woltman is a singular man in this respect. Easily reachable by any and all who want to talk to him, he listens to the needs of his crunchers. He continually seeks to optimize the client’s code, often rewriting it completely for every new instruction set that is released. If a bug is found then it is fixed. If you have a suggestion then he will listen. He just plain takes the time and effort. GIMPS的成员George Woltman是一位只得尊敬的人。他力所能及地帮助需要他地计算软件地人。他倾听他们地需求。他不探索GIMPS客户端的最好的编译代码，经常为新指令的发放而重写他的软件，甚至完全重写。如果软件出现漏洞，那漏洞将会马上被修补。如果其他成员有新的建议，他会倾听。他朴朴素素地一点点地工作，并取得成就。
All of this is because he is passionate about prime numbers. It has forced him to learn his maths as well as his programming. It is this infectious zeal that spreads to those who crunch for GIMPS. You don't need to know just how it works. When you see the amount of energy he puts into it, you are hard pressed not to want to share in it. 他所做地一切源于他对梅森素数地热爱。这使他主动地要学好数学，像他的编程功夫一样棒。这种热情感染了每一位GIMPS的成员。您或许不需要知道他是怎样工作的，因为当您看见他对工作所投入的热诚时，您会希望参与其中的。
We regret to inform you ... 我们遗憾地告诉您……
Many people have had high aspirations when they were young. Just how many wanted to be a fireman or a ballerina but never did can never be known. 许多人在青年时有着强盛地渴望，他们不惜想做一位消防员或芭蕾舞演员。尽管他们并未被大众所熟知。
My own ambition was to go into astrophysics. Along the way I discovered that although my algebra was top notch I just couldn't wrap my head well enough around calculus. That failure is a regret that I have, and though the search for prime numbers does not entail the direct use of calculus nor does it solve the meaning of the universe, the chance to work on a problem of purely mathematical abstraction without the need to train oneself for years is appealing to me. 我自己的梦想是参与天体物理学的研究。沿着这条路，我发现尽管我的代数曾经很棒，但我就是不能把我的聪明才智运用在微积分上。那样的失败的确是我的一大遗憾，尽管梅森素数的搜索不需要直接使用微积分，也不需要解释宇宙的意义。如此纯粹的数学提取工作，又不需要多年的锻炼，这种机会对于爱好理科的我来说是很吸引的。
...these fifteen... no ten, ten commandments! …这些是15…不是10 十条戒律！
Probably the most compelling reason to run GIMPS is to get your name in the history books. Think of it. Mersenne himself lived and died hundreds of years ago and yet today his name is plastered all over an electronic medium of which he could never even have conceived. All the discoverers of Mersenne primes have their names permanently etched in ‘stone’, and although no one will remember most of their names from memory, they will still be there in the list, flagstones on the never ending path of mathematical discovery. Thousands of years from now their names will still be recorded somewhere as discoverers of Mersenne primes. This is no exaggeration either. As long as modern technology survives, so will their names. 可能人们想把自己的名字载入史册是他们加入GIMPS计算的最大动机。想一想吧，梅森他自己生活和去世在数百年以前。现在他的名字在整个电子媒介广为流传。而这电子媒介是他从来也没有想到过会出现的。所有梅森素数的发现者们的名字都会永久地在历史场合留下烙印。尽管几乎没有人可以记起他们地名字，发现者们地名字终究还是保存在名单上的，保存在数学探究之路的石板上。即使是数千年以后，他们的名字也还是会记录在发现梅森素数的地方。这并没有夸张。现代科技将会存在多久，他们的名字也一样。
You will never find this sort of reward in other distributed computing projects. Hundreds of years from now no one will record the fact that it was your computer that found the key fold of a protein. No one will record that it was your computer that processed the signal that found extraterrestrial life. All that will be recorded is that it was a group effort. Mathematical research differs in this respect. It is a tradition to credit the individual. 您将永远不会在其他分布式计算项目理找到这种荣誉。千百年以来没有人的名字能以找到解开折叠蛋白质之谜的钥匙而名垂青史，因为那是您的计算机做到的。没有人的名字可以因为找到外太空智能声明而载入史册，因为即使是那样也是电脑分析信号所得到的。所有被记录的只是一个组的成就。而梅森素数的搜索于其他不同，奖励个人是此项目的传统。
In fifty words or less... 50个词或更少的表述…
Idle hands are the devil’s playground, as too are idle CPU cycles. If you are still reading this then you must agree. The only choice left is where to put your allegiance. Please consider joining GIMPS today. 懒惰使人退步，即使是CPU也一样。过分空闲将不会使CPU的潜能得到发挥。如果您仍然在阅读这片文章，那么您肯定会同意。唯一剩下的选择是：将您的热诚给谁？参加GIMPS的运算是您知道考虑的选择。
Written by Justin "Lumly" Valcourt Justin "Lumly" Valcourt 著
Greathill 译
[ Last edited by Grё@thΙll on 2005-8-20 at 11:43 ] |
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发表于 2005-11-7 20:43:57