纪录片《费马最后的定理》 第19期 :唯一的听众

It involved a kind of mathematics that Nick Katz is an expert in.

其中包括的一类数学问题正是尼克·凯兹所擅长的。

I think another reason he asked me was that he was sure I would not tell other people,

我想他问我的另一原因是他确定我不会告诉其他人

I would keep my mouth shut, which I did.

我会守口如瓶，也正是如此。

Andrew Wiles¹ and Nick Katz had been spending rather a lot of time

安德鲁·怀尔斯和尼克·凯兹一起花了许多时间，

huddled² over a coffee table at the far end of the common room working on some problem or other.

缩在公共休息室远角的一张咖啡桌那儿，共同研究这样那样的问题。

We never knew what it was.

我们从不知道那是什么。

In order not to arouse any more suspicion,

为了不引起更多的怀疑

Andrew decided³ to check his proof by disguising it in a course of lectures which Nick Katz could then attend.

安德鲁决定通过乔装的方式来验证他的证明，以一个课程的方式，尼克·凯兹亦可参加。

Well I explained at the beginning of the course that Flach had written this beautiful paper

在这堂课的开始我解释道，弗拉赫写就了这篇漂亮的论文，

and I wanted to try to extend it to prove the full class number formula.

而我力图要拓展它，以证明整个类数公式。

The only thing I didn't explain was that proving the class number formula was most of the way to Fermat's last theorem.

我唯一没有说明的是证明这个类数公式是通往费马最后定理的康庄大道。

So this course was announced. It said calculations on elliptic curves, which could mean anything.

这个课程随即出了通告。说是与椭圆曲线的计算，但其意味深长。

Didn't mention Fermat, didn't mention Taniyama-Shimura,

没有提及费马，没有提及谷山-志村猜想，

there was no way in the world anyone could have guessed that it was about that if you didn't already know.

如果你不是已然知晓，这个世界上不可能再会有谁猜到其真正是关于什么的。

None of the graduate students knew and in a few weeks they just drifted off

没有研究生知道，而数周后他们陆续退出了，

because it's impossible to follow stuff if you don't know what it's for, pretty much.

因为如果你不知道它的用意，就不可能跟得上，确实如此。

It's pretty hard even if you do know what's it for, but after a few weeks I was the only guy in the audience.

即使你知道它的用意，也是相当困难的，但过了几周，我就成了唯一的听众。

1 wiles   

n.（旨在欺骗或吸引人的）诡计，花招；欺骗，欺诈( wile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• All her wiles were to persuade them to buy the goods. 她花言巧语想打动他们买这些货物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The woman used all her wiles to tempt him into following her. 那女人用尽了自己的诱骗本领勾引着他尾随而去。 来自《用法词典》

2 huddled   

挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
• We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。