Today I want to talk to you about the mathematics of love. Now, I think that we can all agree that mathematicians are famously excellent at finding love.
Hari ini, saya akan bercakap tentang cinta dari sudut matematik. Rasanya kita semua bersetuju bahawa ahli matematik pandai mencari kekasih.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
But it's not just because of our dashing personalities, superior conversational skills and excellent pencil cases. It's also because we've actually done an awful lot of work into the maths of how to find the perfect partner.
Tapi, ia bukannya sekadar kerana kami ada personaliti yang menarik, kemahiran berkomunikasi yang baik, dan kotak pensel yang hebat, (Gelak ketawa) Ia juga kerana kami telah meninjau dari sudut matematik cara untuk mencari pasangan yang sesuai.
Now, in my favorite paper on the subject, which is entitled,
Dalam artikel kegemaran saya,
"Why I Don't Have a Girlfriend" --
iaitu artikel Matematik yang bertajuk "Mengapa saya tidak ada teman wanita", (Gelak ketawa)
(Laughter)
Peter Backus cuba menilai peluangnya untuk menemui seorang kekasih.
Peter Backus tries to rate his chances of finding love. Now, Peter's not a very greedy man. Of all of the available women in the UK, all Peter's looking for is somebody who lives near him, somebody in the right age range, somebody with a university degree, somebody he's likely to get on well with, somebody who's likely to be attractive, somebody who's likely to find him attractive.
Peter bukannya seorang lelaki yang tamak. Antara semua perempuan di U.K., Peter mencari seseorang yang tinggal berdekatan dengan rumahnya, seseorang yang sesuai dari segi usia, seseorang yang ada kelulusan universiti, seseorang yang dapat bergaul secara baik dengannya, seseorang yang menawan, seseorang yang mendapati dia menawan.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
And comes up with an estimate of 26 women in the whole of the UK.
Anggarannya, terdapat 26 perempuan di U.K. yang sesuai dengannya.
(Laughter)
Ia tak kelihatan baik, betul, Peter?
It's not looking very good, is it Peter? Now, just to put that into perspective, that's about 400 times fewer than the best estimates of how many intelligent extraterrestrial life forms there are. And it also gives Peter a 1 in 285,000 chance of bumping into any one of these special ladies on a given night out. I'd like to think that's why mathematicians don't really bother going on nights out anymore.
Mari kita menilainya, ia 400 kali ganda lebih kurang berbanding anggaran jumlah makhluk asing yang wujud. Bagi Peter, Peluangnya ialah 1 dalam 285,000 untuk bertemu salah seorang wanita tersebut pada suatu malam. Rasanya itulah sebabnya ahli matematik tak suka keluar pada waktu malam.
The thing is that I personally don't subscribe to such a pessimistic view. Because I know, just as well as all of you do, that love doesn't really work like that. Human emotion isn't neatly ordered and rational and easily predictable. But I also know that that doesn't mean that mathematics hasn't got something that it can offer us, because, love, as with most of life, is full of patterns and mathematics is, ultimately, all about the study of patterns. Patterns from predicting the weather to the fluctuations in the stock market, to the movement of the planets or the growth of cities. And if we're being honest, none of those things are exactly neatly ordered and easily predictable, either. Because I believe that mathematics is so powerful that it has the potential to offer us a new way of looking at almost anything. Even something as mysterious as love. And so, to try to persuade you of how totally amazing, excellent and relevant mathematics is, I want to give you my top three mathematically verifiable tips for love.
Saya tak bersetuju dengan pandangan yang pesimistik ini, kerana saya tahu, anda semua pun tahu, bahawa itu bukannya cinta. Perasaan manusia bukannya terkawal dan mudah diramal. Tapi, saya tahu ia tak bermakna bahawa matematik tak dapat membantu kita kerana cinta, seperti pelbagai hidupan, juga mempunyai polanya, Pada asasnya, ilmu matematik digunakan untuk mengkaji pola, contohnya ramalan cuaca, turun naik harga saham, pergerakan planet, atau perkembangan bandar. Kita tahu, semua itu bukannya terkawal dan mudah diramal. Saya percaya bahawa matematik sangat berguna, dan ia berpontensi memberi kita perspektif yang baru, walaupun ia melibatkan sesuatu yang penuh misteri seperti cinta. Jadi, untuk menunjukkan kepada anda bahawa matematik amat mengagumkan, hebat, dan berguna kepada kita, saya akan tunjukkan 3 petua untuk cinta yang telah disahkan dari segi matematik.
(Laughter)
Baiklah, Petua #1:
OK, so Top Tip #1: How to win at online dating. So my favorite online dating website is OkCupid, not least because it was started by a group of mathematicians. Now, because they're mathematicians, they have been collecting data on everybody who uses their site for almost a decade. And they've been trying to search for patterns in the way that we talk about ourselves and the way that we interact with each other on an online dating website. And they've come up with some seriously interesting findings. But my particular favorite is that it turns out that on an online dating website, how attractive you are does not dictate how popular you are, and actually, having people think that you're ugly can work to your advantage.
Cara untuk mencari kekasih dalam laman janji temu. OkCupid ialah laman janji temu kegemaran saya. Ia dimulakan oleh sekumpulan ahli matematik. Ahli-ahli matematik ini telah mengumpulkan data pengguna laman web itu selama sepuluh tahun. Mereka cuba mencari pola-pola pengguna memperkenalkan dirinya dan cara mereka berinteraksi dalam laman janji temu. Hasil-hasil kajian tersebut sangat menarik. Tapi, yang menjadi kegemaran saya, didapati bahawa dalam laman janji temu, daya tarikan anda tidak menggambarkan kepopularan anda. Sebenarnya, jika orang lain rasa bahawa anda adalah hodoh, mungkin ia adalah baik bagi anda.
(Laughter)
Saya akan menerangkannya.
Let me show you how this works. In a thankfully voluntary section of OkCupid, you are allowed to rate how attractive you think people are on a scale between one and five. Now, if we compare this score, the average score, to how many messages a selection of people receive, you can begin to get a sense of how attractiveness links to popularity on an online dating website.
Dalam sebuah bahagian dalam OkCupid, anda boleh menilai daya tarikan pengguna lain dengan menggunakan skor antara 1 hingga 5. Jika kita membandingkan skor purata ini dengan bilangan mesej yang diterima sekumpulan pengguna, anda akan faham perhubungan antara daya tarikan dengan kepopularan dalam laman janji temu.
This is the graph the OkCupid guys have come up with. And the important thing to notice is that it's not totally true that the more attractive you are, the more messages you get. But the question arises then of what is it about people up here who are so much more popular than people down here, even though they have the same score of attractiveness? And the reason why is that it's not just straightforward looks that are important. So let me try to illustrate their findings with an example. So if you take someone like Portia de Rossi, for example, everybody agrees that Portia de Rossi is a very beautiful woman. Nobody thinks that she's ugly, but she's not a supermodel, either. If you compare Portia de Rossi to someone like Sarah Jessica Parker, now, a lot of people, myself included, I should say, think that Sarah Jessica Parker is seriously fabulous and possibly one of the most beautiful creatures to have ever have walked on the face of the Earth. But some other people, i.e., most of the Internet ...
Inilah graf yang dihasilkan oleh pihak OkCupid. Yang penting di sini, orang yang amat menawan tidak semestinya akan menerima mesej yang banyak. Tapi persoalannya ialah, kenapa pengguna di sini adalah lebih popular daripada pengguna di sini walaupun skor daya tarikan mereka adalah sama? Sebabnya, rupa tidak begitu penting. Saya akan menerangkannya dengan menggunakan satu contoh. Ini ialah Portia de Rossi. Semua orang bersetuju bahawa Portia de Rossi sangat cantik. Tiada orang rasa dia adalah hodoh, tapi dia bukannya supermodel. Jika Portia de Rossi dibandingkan dengan Sarah Jessica Parker, ramai orang, termasuk saya, rasa bahawa Sarah Jessica Parker sangat cantik, dan mungkin dia merupakan salah seorang manusia yang paling cantik di bumi. Tapi orang lain, iaitu kebanyakan pengguna Internet,
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
seem to think that she looks a bit like a horse.
rasa bahawa dia nampak seperti kuda.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
Now, I think that if you ask people how attractive they thought Jessica Parker or Portia de Rossi were, and you ask them to give them a score between one and five I reckon that they'd average out to have roughly the same score. But the way that people would vote would be very different. So Portia's scores would all be clustered around the four because everybody agrees that she's very beautiful, whereas Sarah Jessica Parker completely divides opinion. There'd be a huge spread in her scores. And actually it's this spread that counts. It's this spread that makes you more popular on an online Internet dating website. So what that means then is that if some people think that you're attractive, you're actually better off having some other people think that you're a massive minger. That's much better than everybody just thinking that you're the cute girl next door.
Saya rasa jika orang ramai diminta untuk menilai Sarah Jessica Parker atau Portia de Rossi dengan menggunakan skor antara 1 hingga 5, saya rasa kedua-duanya akan mendapat skor yang hampir sama. Tapi, cara orang ramai mengundi adalah sangat berbeza. Orang ramai akan memberi Portia skor 4 kerana mereka bersetuju bahawa dia sangat cantik, manakala skor yang diterima Sarah Jesica Parker adalah berbelah bagi. Sebenarnya, perbezaan inilah yang bermakna. Perbezaan inilah yang menjadikan anda lebih popular dalam laman janji temu. Jadi, ia bermakna, jika ada orang rasa bahawa anda adalah menawan, maka ada juga orang yang rasa bahawa anda tak menawan. Ia adalah lebih baik daripada semua orang rasa anda seorang yang comel.
Now, I think this begins to make a bit more sense when you think in terms of the people who are sending these messages. So let's say that you think somebody's attractive, but you suspect that other people won't necessarily be that interested. That means there's less competition for you and it's an extra incentive for you to get in touch. Whereas compare that to if you think somebody is attractive but you suspect that everybody is going to think they're attractive. Well, why would you bother humiliating yourself, let's be honest? But here's where the really interesting part comes. Because when people choose the pictures that they use on an online dating website, they often try to minimize the things that they think some people will find unattractive. The classic example is people who are, perhaps, a little bit overweight deliberately choosing a very cropped photo,
Rasanya ia lebih munasabah jika anda melihatnya dari sudut pengguna yang menghantar mesej. Katakanlah anda rasa seseorang itu adalah menawan, tapi anda rasa mungkin orang lain tak berminat padanya. Maksudnya, anda tak ada pesaing yang ramai dan anda berpeluang berhubung dengan orang itu. Bandingkan, jika anda rasa seseorang itu adalah menawan, tapi anda rasa orang lain pun rasa begitu. Anda tak mahu memalukan diri sendiri, betul? Berikut ialah bahagian yang sangat menarik. Bila pengguna memilih gambar yang akan terpapar dalam laman janji temu, selalunya mereka cuba mengelakkan bahagian yang mereka rasa akan kelihatan hodoh bagi orang lain. Contoh yang klasik, orang yang gemuk akan memilih gambar yang telah diubah suai,
(Laughter)
atau contohnya, orang yang botak
or bald men, for example, deliberately choosing pictures where they're wearing hats. But actually this is the opposite of what you should do if you want to be successful. You should really, instead, play up to whatever it is that makes you different, even if you think that some people will find it unattractive. Because the people who fancy you are just going to fancy you anyway, and the unimportant losers who don't, well, they only play up to your advantage.
akan memilih gambar yang menunjukkannya memakai topi. Tapi, anda tak patut membuat begitu jika anda mahu berjaya. Anda sepatutnya menggunakan sesuatu yang menjadikan anda berbeza, walaupun mungkin orang lain akan rasa ia adalah hodoh. Sebab, orang yang sukakan anda tak kisahkan semua itu. Orang yang tak sukakan anda pula boleh membantu anda. Baiklah, Petua #2: Cara untuk memilih pasangan yang sesuai.
OK, Top Tip #2: How to pick the perfect partner. So let's imagine then that you're a roaring success on the dating scene. But the question arises of how do you then convert that success into longer-term happiness, and in particular, how do you decide when is the right time to settle down? Now generally, it's not advisable to just cash in and marry the first person who comes along and shows you any interest at all. But, equally, you don't really want to leave it too long if you want to maximize your chance of long-term happiness. As my favorite author, Jane Austen, puts it, "An unmarried woman of seven and twenty can never hope to feel or inspire affection again."
Katakanlah anda sangat popular dalam laman janji temu. Tapi, bagaimana anda berubah daripada menjadi popular kepada menikmati kebahagian jangka panjang, iaitu bagaimana anda tahu sudah tiba masanya untuk berkahwin? Biasanya, pengguna dinasihatkan jangan berkahwin dengan orang pertama yang muncul dan menunjukkan minat pada anda. Tapi, anda juga tak mahu menunggu terlalu lama jika anda mahu memperoleh kebahagian jangka panjang. Seperti yang ditulis penulis kegemaran saya, Jane Austen, "Perempuan bujang yang berusia 7 dan 20 tahun tidak lagi dapat merasai atau mencetuskan rasa kasih sayang."
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
Thanks a lot, Jane. What do you know about love?
Terima kasih, Jane. Apa yang awak tahu tentang cinta?
(Laughter)
Jadi, persoalannya ialah,
So the question is then, how do you know when is the right time to settle down, given all the people that you can date in your lifetime? Thankfully, there's a rather delicious bit of mathematics that we can use to help us out here, called optimal stopping theory. So let's imagine, then, that you start dating when you're 15 and ideally, you'd like to be married by the time that you're 35. And there's a number of people that you could potentially date across your lifetime, and they'll be at varying levels of goodness. Now the rules are that once you cash in and get married, you can't look ahead to see what you could have had, and equally, you can't go back and change your mind. In my experience at least, I find that typically people don't much like being recalled years after being passed up for somebody else, or that's just me.
bagaimana anda tahu sudah tiba masanya untuk berkahwin bila terdapatnya ramai orang yang boleh dipilih? Syukurlah, terdapat sebuah teori matematik yang boleh digunakan untuk membantu kita, iaitu teori pemberhentian optimum. Jadi, bayangkan, anda mula berdating semasa anda berusia 15 tahun. Secara ideal, anda mahu berkahwin semasa anda berusia 35 tahun. Terdapat sebilangan orang yang anda boleh keluar bersama sepanjang hidup anda dan kualiti mereka adalah berbeza-beza. Peraturannya, setelah anda berkahwin, anda tak boleh mencari calon lain yang berpotensi dikahwini. Anda juga tak boleh mencari bekas kekasih dan bercerai. Berdasarkan pengalaman saya, seseorang itu tak suka berjumpa bekas kekasihnya setelah mereka berpisah disebabkan orang lain.
So the math says then that what you should do
Mungkin itu cuma saya.
in the first 37 percent of your dating window, you should just reject everybody as serious marriage potential.
Jadi, matematik menunjukkan apa yang anda patut buat pada 37% pertama dalam masa berdating anda, anda patut menolak setiap orang yang berpotensi berkahwin dengan anda.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
And then, you should pick the next person that comes along that is better than everybody that you've seen before. So here's the example. Now if you do this, it can be mathematically proven, in fact, that this is the best possible way of maximizing your chances of finding the perfect partner. Now unfortunately, I have to tell you that this method does come with some risks. For instance, imagine if your perfect partner appeared during your first 37 percent. Now, unfortunately, you'd have to reject them.
Kemudian, anda patut memilih orang seterusnya yang anda temui kerana dia adalah lebih baik berbanding yang lain. Inilah contohnya. Jika anda berbuat demikian, sebenarnya ia boleh dibuktikan dari segi matematik bahawa inilah cara terbaik untuk memaksimumkan peluang anda menemui pasangan yang sesuai. Malangnya, saya perlu beritahu anda bahawa cara ini mempunyai risikonya. Sebagai contoh, bayangkan jika pasangan yang sesuai itu ditemui dalam 37% yang pertama. Malangnya, anda perlu menolaknya.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
Now, if you're following the maths, I'm afraid no one else comes along that's better than anyone you've seen before, so you have to go on rejecting everyone and die alone.
Jika anda percayakan kiraan matematik, dan jika anda tidak menemui orang yang lebih baik daripada yang lain, maka anda terpaksa menolak sesiapa pun dan mati bersendirian.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
Probably surrounded by cats ...
Mungkin anda akan dikelilingi kucing
(Laughter)
yang menggigit-gigit mayat anda.
nibbling at your remains.
Baiklah, risiko yang kedua, bayangkan,
OK, another risk is, let's imagine, instead, that the first people that you dated in your first 37 percent are just incredibly dull, boring, terrible people. That's OK, because you're in your rejection phase, so that's fine, you can reject them. But then imagine the next person to come along is just marginally less boring, dull and terrible ...
orang pertama yang anda temui dalam 37% yang pertama amat membosankan dan teruk. Tidak mengapa, kerana anda berada dalam fasa menolak. Jadi, tidak mengapa, anda boleh menolaknya. Tapi bayangkan, orang seterusnya yang anda temui tidak begitu membosankan dan teruk
(Laughter)
berbanding orang lain yang anda temui.
than everybody that you've seen before. Now, if you are following the maths, I'm afraid you have to marry them ...
Jika anda percayakan kiraan matematik, maka anda terpaksa berkahwin dengannya
(Laughter)
dan menjalani perkahwinan yang tidak bahagia.
and end up in a relationship which is, frankly, suboptimal. Sorry about that. But I do think that there's an opportunity here for Hallmark to cash in on and really cater for this market. A Valentine's Day card like this.
Saya berasa kesal dengannya. Tapi saya rasa Hallmark boleh memanfaatkannya dan membuka pasaran ini. Kad Hari Valentine seperti ini. (Gelak ketawa)
(Laughter)
"Suamiku yang dikasihi,
"My darling husband, you are marginally less terrible than the first 37 percent of people I dated."
kau taklah begitu teruk berbanding lelaki dalam 37% pertama yang keluar dengan aku."
(Laughter)
It's actually more romantic than I normally manage.
Sebenarnya, ia lebih romatik daripada apa yang saya usahakan.
(Laughter)
OK, so this method doesn't give you a 100 percent success rate, but there's no other possible strategy that can do any better. And actually, in the wild, there are certain types of fish which follow and employ this exact strategy. So they reject every possible suitor that turns up in the first 37 percent of the mating season, and then they pick the next fish that comes along after that window that's, I don't know, bigger and burlier than all of the fish that they've seen before. I also think that subconsciously, humans, we do sort of do this anyway. We give ourselves a little bit of time to play the field, get a feel for the marketplace or whatever when we're young. And then we only start looking seriously at potential marriage candidates once we hit our mid-to-late 20s. I think this is conclusive proof, if ever it were needed, that everybody's brains are prewired to be just a little bit mathematical.
Jadi, cara ini tidak memberikan kadar kejayaan 100%, tapi tidak terdapatnya strategi lain yang lebih baik. Sebenarnya, terdapatnya beberapa jenis ikan yang mengikut dan menggunakan strategi ini. Ikan-ikan ini menolak pelamar yang berada dalam 37% yang pertama semasa musim mengawan, kemudian ikan-ikan ini memilih ikan seterusnya yang ditemui selepas itu, entahlah, mungkin yang lebih besar dan kuat berbanding ikan-ikan lain yang ditemui sebelum itu. Rasanya tanpa disedari, manusia juga berbuat demikian. Kita memberikan masa kepada diri sendiri untuk berseronok, meninjau pasaran kita dan sebagainya bila kita masih muda. Kita mula mencari secara serius calon yang sesuai dikahwini bila mencecah usia pertengahan 20-an. Rasanya ini ialah bukti yang konklusif, bahawa otak kita boleh mengira secara semula jadi.
OK, so that was Top Tip #2. Now, Top Tip #3: How to avoid divorce. OK, so let's imagine then that you picked your perfect partner and you're settling into a lifelong relationship with them. Now, I like to think that everybody would ideally like to avoid divorce, apart from, I don't know, Piers Morgan's wife, maybe?
Baiklah, itulah dia Petua #2. Sekarang, Petua #3: Cara untuk mengelakkan perceraian. Bayangkan anda telah memilih pasangan yang sesuai, dan anda telah berkahwin dengannya. Secara ideal, saya rasa semua orang mahu mengelakkan perceraian, melainkan, entahlah, mungkin isteri Piers Morgan?
(Laughter)
Tapi, memang menyedihkan, dalam kehidupan moden,
But it's a sad fact of modern life that one in two marriages in the States ends in divorce, with the rest of the world not being far behind. Now, you can be forgiven, perhaps for thinking that the arguments that precede a marital breakup are not an ideal candidate for mathematical investigation. For one thing, it's very hard to know what you should be measuring or what you should be quantifying. But this didn't stop a psychologist, John Gottman, who did exactly that. Gottman observed hundreds of couples having a conversation and recorded, well, everything you can think of. So he recorded what was said in the conversation, he recorded their skin conductivity, he recorded their facial expressions, their heart rates, their blood pressure, basically everything apart from whether or not the wife was actually always right, which incidentally she totally is. But what Gottman and his team found was that one of the most important predictors for whether or not a couple is going to get divorced was how positive or negative each partner was being in the conversation.
1 dalam 2 perkahwinan di Amerika berakhir dengan perceraian, negara-negara lain tidak begitu ketinggalan. Anda boleh dimaafkan jika anda berfikir bahawa perbalahan yang mencetuskan perceraian bukannya perkara yang ideal untuk dinilai dari segi matematik. Sebab, adalah sukar untuk menentukan apa yang patut dinilai atau dinyatakan kuantitinya. Tapi, ia tidak menghalang ahli psikologi, John Gottman, berbuat demikian. Gottman memerhatikan beratus-ratus pasangan berbual dan merekodkan semua perbualan mereka. Jadi, dia merekodkan apa yang dibualkan, kekonduksian kulit mereka, air muka mereka, kadar denyutan jantung, dan tekanan darah mereka, pada dasarnya semua perkara, kecuali sama ada kata-kata si isteri adalah sentiasa betul. Sebenarnya, kata-kata si isteri memang betul. Tapi, apa yang ditemui Gottman dan pasukannya ialah salah satu peramal yang amat penting bagi sama ada pasangan suami isteri akan bercerai, iaitu sikap yang positif atau negatif dalam perbualan.
Now, couples that were very low-risk scored a lot more positive points on Gottman's scale than negative. Whereas bad relationships, by which I mean, probably going to get divorced, they found themselves getting into a spiral of negativity. Now just by using these very simple ideas, Gottman and his group were able to predict whether a given couple was going to get divorced with a 90 percent accuracy. But it wasn't until he teamed up with a mathematician, James Murray, that they really started to understand what causes these negativity spirals and how they occur. And the results that they found, I think, are just incredibly impressively simple and interesting. So these equations predict how the wife or husband is going to respond in their next turn of the conversation, how positive or negative they're going to be. And these equations depend on the mood of the person when they're on their own, the mood of the person when they're with their partner, but most importantly, they depend on how much the husband and wife influence one another.
Pasangan suami isteri yang ada risiko yang rendah mendapat lebih banyak skor positif berdasarkan ukuran Gottman. Manakala bagi perhubungan yang teruk, iaitu mereka yang mungkin akan bercerai, mereka berada dalam keadaan yang negatif. Dengan menggunakan cara yang mudah ini, Gottman dan kumpulannya dapat meramal sama ada pasangan suami isteri akan bercerai dan ketepatan ramalan ialah 90%. Setelah dia bekerjasama dengan seorang ahli matematik, James Murray, mereka mula memahami apa yang menyebabkan keadaan negatif ini dan bagaimana ia berlaku. Saya rasa hasil dapatan mereka amat mudah difahami dan menarik. Kedua-dua persamaan ini meramalkan bagaimana si isteri atau suami akan menjawab dalam perbualan yang seterusnya, sama ada secara positif atau negatif. Kedua-dua persamaan ini bergantung pada anginnya semasa dia bersendirian, anginnya semasa dia bersama pasangannya, tapi yang terpenting, ia bergantung pada setakat mana pasangan suami isteri itu saling mempengaruhi.
Now, I think it's important to point out at this stage, that these exact equations have also been shown to be perfectly able at describing what happens between two countries in an arms race.
Pada ketika ini, adalah penting untuk mengatakan bahawa kedua-dua persamaan ini juga didapati dapat menunjukkan dengan tepat apa yang berlaku antara dua negara yang terlibat dalam perlumbaan senjata.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
So that an arguing couple spiraling into negativity and teetering on the brink of divorce is actually mathematically equivalent to the beginning of a nuclear war.
Jadi, pasangan suami isteri yang berbalah, berada dalam keadaan negatif, dan hampir-hampir bercerai adalah sama seperti permulaan perang nuklear dari sudut matematik.
(Laughter)
(Gelak ketawa)
But the really important term in this equation is the influence that people have on one another, and in particular, something called "the negativity threshold." Now, the negativity threshold, you can think of as how annoying the husband can be before the wife starts to get really pissed off, and vice versa. Now, I always thought that good marriages were about compromise and understanding and allowing the person to have the space to be themselves. So I would have thought that perhaps the most successful relationships were ones where there was a really high negativity threshold. Where couples let things go and only brought things up if they really were a big deal. But actually, the mathematics and subsequent findings by the team have shown the exact opposite is true. The best couples, or the most successful couples, are the ones with a really low negativity threshold. These are the couples that don't let anything go unnoticed and allow each other some room to complain. These are the couples that are continually trying to repair their own relationship, that have a much more positive outlook on their marriage. Couples that don't let things go and couples that don't let trivial things end up being a really big deal.
Tapi, perkara yang penting dalam kedua-dua persamaan ini ialah pengaruh seseorang itu pada orang lain, secara khusus, ia dikenali sebagai ambang kenegatifan. Ambang kenegatifan boleh dilihat dari segi betapa teruknya si suami sehingga si isteri mula berasa geram, dan sebaliknya. Bagi saya, pasangan suami isteri yang bahagia bertolak ansur, saling memahami, dan memberikan ruang peribadi kepada pasangannya. Jadi, saya rasa pasangan suami isteri yang amat bahagia mempunyai ambang kenegatifan yang sangat tinggi. Mereka membiarkan saja sesuatu dan akan membincangkannya jika ia sesuatu yang serius. Sebenarnya, persamaan matematik dan hasil dapatan pasukan tersebut telah menunjukkan yang sebaliknya. Pasangan suami isteri yang sangat bahagia mempunyai ambang kenegatifan yang sangat rendah. Mereka tidak membiarkan sesuatu dan memberikan ruang untuk melahirkan rasa tidak puas hati. Mereka sentiasa cuba membaiki perhubungan mereka dan ia memberikan kesan positif pada perkahwinan mereka. Mereka tidak membiarkan sesuatu dan tidak membenarkan perkara yang remeh menjadi serius.
Now of course, it takes a bit more than just a low negativity threshold and not compromising to have a successful relationship. But I think that it's quite interesting to know that there is really mathematical evidence to say that you should never let the sun go down on your anger.
Semestinya, bukan saja ambang kenegatifan yang rendah dan saling bertolak ansur dapat menghasilkan perhubungan yang baik. Saya rasa adalah agak menarik kerana terdapatnya bukti dari segi matematik yang menyatakan bahawa jangan menyimpan kemarahan anda.
So those are my top three tips of how maths can help you with love and relationships. But I hope, that aside from their use as tips, they also give you a little bit of insight into the power of mathematics. Because for me, equations and symbols aren't just a thing. They're a voice that speaks out about the incredible richness of nature and the startling simplicity in the patterns that twist and turn and warp and evolve all around us, from how the world works to how we behave. So I hope that perhaps, for just a couple of you, a little bit of insight into the mathematics of love can persuade you to have a little bit more love for mathematics.
Jadi, itulah dia tiga petua dari sudut matematik yang boleh membantu soal cinta dan perhubungan anda. Tapi saya berharap, selain digunakan sebagai petua, ia juga dapat membuka mata anda tentang kehebatan matematik. Kerana bagi saya, persamaan dan simbol bukannya merupakan sebuah perkara saja. Ia juga merupakan sebuah suara yang dapat menyatakan kekayaan alam semula jadi dan keringkasan yang mengejutkan yang terdapat dalam pola-pola yang berada di sekitar kita, daripada bagaimana dunia ini berfungsi sehingga bagaimana kita bertindak. Saya berharap, mungkin bagi beberapa orang, sedikit ilmu tentang cinta dari sudut matematik dapat menggalakkan anda agar lebih menyukai matematik.
Thank you.
Terima kasih.
(Applause)
(Tepukan)