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.
Danes bi vam rada govorila o matematiki ljubezni. Mislim, da se lahko vsi strinjamo, da matematiki slovijo po tem, da so odlični v iskanju ljubezni.
(Laughter)
A ne le zaradi naših sijajnih osebnosti,
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.
superiornih pogovornih spretnosti in odličnih peresnic za svinčnike. Ampak tudi zato, ker smo dejansko naredili ogromno dela glede matematike, kako najti popolnega partnerja.
Now, in my favorite paper on the subject, which is entitled, "Why I Don't Have a Girlfriend" --
V mojem najljubšem članku o tej temi, ki nosi naslov: "Zakaj nimam punce" - (smeh) -
(Laughter)
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 Backus poskuša oceniti svoje možnosti, da najde ljubezen. A Peter ni zelo pohlepen. Med vsemi možnimi ženskami v Združenem kraljestvu Peter išče le takšno, ki živi blizu njega, ki je v pravem starostnem razponu, ki ima univerzitetno diplomo, s katero se bo verjetno lepo ujel, ki je verjetno privlačna, ki se ji bo on verjetno zdel privlačen.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
And comes up with an estimate of 26 women in the whole of the UK.
Oceni, da je v celotnem Združenem kraljestvu 26 takšnih žensk.
(Laughter)
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.
To pa ni preveč obetavno, kaj Peter? Če to postavimo v perspektivo, je to približno 400-krat manj, kot so najboljše ocene, koliko inteligentnih izvenzemeljskih oblik življenja obstaja. Petru pa da tudi možnost 1 proti 285.000, da se bo zaletel v eno od teh posebnih dam v določeni noči, ko gre ven. Mislim, da je to razlog, zakaj se matematiki v resnici več ne trudijo, da bi hodili ven.
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.
A v bistvu se jaz osebno ne strinjam s tako pesimističnim pogledom. Ker vem, tako dobro, kot vsi vi, da ljubezen v resnici ne deluje tako. Človeško čustvo ni lepo urejeno in razumsko in enostavno predvidljivo. Hkrati pa vem, da to ne pomeni, da matematika nima ničesar, kar bi nam lahko ponudila, ker je ljubezen, kot večina življenja, polna vzorcev in matematika je konec koncev proučevanje vzorcev. Od vzorcev napovedovanja vremena do nihanj na trgu vrednostnih papirjev, gibanja planetov ali rasti mest. In če smo pošteni, nič od tega prav tako ni ravno lepo urejeno in enostavno predvidljivo. Ker verjamem, da je matematika tako močna, da ima potencial, da nam ponudi nov pogled na skoraj vse. Tudi na nekaj tako skrivnostnega kot je ljubezen. Da bi vas torej prepričala, kako popolnoma osupljiva, odlična in pomembna je matematika, vam želim dati tri najboljše matematično preverljive nasvete za ljubezen.
(Laughter)
Prav, torej najboljši nasvet št. 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.
Kako zmagati v spletnih zmenkarijah. Moja najljubša spletna stran za zmenkarije je OkCupid, med drugim zato, ker jo je ustvarila skupina matematikov. Ker so matematiki, so zbirali podatke o vseh, ki uporabljajo njihovo stran, skoraj desetletje. Poskušali so iskati vzorce v tem, kako govorimo o sebi in v tem, kako medsebojno komuniciramo na spletni strani za zmenkarije. Tako so prišli do nekaterih resnično zanimivih odkritij. A moje najljubše je to, da se izkaže, da na spletni strani za zmenkarije, to, kako privlačen si, ne odloča o tvoji priljubljenosti, in pravzaprav vam mišljenje ljudi, da ste grdi, lahko celo pomaga.
(Laughter)
Naj vam pokažem, kako to deluje.
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.
V k sreči prostovoljnem delu strani OkCupid lahko ocenjujete, kako privlačni se vam zdijo ljudje, na lestvici od 1 do 5. Če primerjate to oceno, povprečno oceno, s številom sporočil, ki jih izbrani ljudje dobijo, lahko pričnete dobivati občutek, kako je privlačnost povezana s priljubljenostjo na strani za zmenkarije.
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 ...
To je grafikon, ki so ga dobili fantje z OkCupida. Pomembno je, da opazimo, da ne drži popolnoma, da bolj kot ste privlačni, več sporočil dobite. Vendar se potem postavi vprašanje, kaj je takšnega na ljudeh tu zgoraj, ki so toliko bolj priljubljeni od ljudi tu spodaj, čeprav imajo enako oceno privlačnosti? Razlog je v tem, da ni pomemben samo videz sam po sebi. Naj vam njihova odkritja prikažem skozi primer. Če na primer vzamete nekoga, kot je Portia de Rossi, se vsi strinjajo, da je Portia de Rossi zelo lepa ženska. Nikomur se ne zdi grda, a tudi supermodel ni. Če primerjate Portio de Rossi z nekom, kot je Sarah Jessica Parker, mnogi, tudi jaz, moram reči, menijo, da je Sarah Jessica Parker resnično čudovita in verjetno ena od najlepših bitij, ki so kadarkoli hodile po Zemlji. Nekateri drugi, na primer večina interneta,
(Laughter)
pa so zgleda mnenja, da izgleda kot konj. (smeh)
seem to think that she looks a bit like a horse.
(Laughter)
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.
Mislim, da če bi vprašali ljudi, kako privlačni se jim zdita Sarah Jessica Parker ali Portia de Rossi in naj ju ocenijo od 1 do 5, domnevam, da bi v povprečju imeli približno enako oceno. Vendar bi bil način, na katerega bi glasovali, zelo različen. Ocene za Portio bi bile zgoščene okoli 4, ker se vsi strinjajo, da je zelo lepa, medtem ko so za Sarah Jessico Parker mnenja zelo deljena. Njene ocene bi bile zelo razpršene. A pravzaprav ravno ta razpršenost šteje. Ta razpršenost te naredi bolj priljubljenega na spletni strani za zmenkarije. To torej pomeni, da če nekateri ljudje menijo, da ste privlačni, je za vas bolje, če nekateri drugi menijo, da ste grdi kot smrt. To je veliko bolje, kot da vsi mislijo, da ste luštna punca iz soseske.
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,
Mislim, da to dobi več smisla, ko razmišljate kot ljudje, ki pošiljajo ta sporočila. Recimo, da se vam nekdo zdi privlačen, vendar sumite, da drugi ne bodo nujno tako zainteresirani. To pomeni, da imate manj konkurence in to je dodatna vzpodbuda, da vzpostavite stik. Primerjajte to s tem, da se vam nekdo zdi privlačen, vendar sumite, da se bo vsem zdel privlačen. Če smo pošteni, zakaj bi se trudili, da se ponižate? Tu pa pride resnično zanimiv del. Ko ljudje izbirajo slike, ki jih uporabijo na spletni strani za zmenkarije, pogosto poskušajo zmanjšati stvari, za katere mislijo, da bi se komu zdele neprivlačne. Klasičen primer je, ko ljudje, ki so morda nekoliko pretežki, namenoma izberejo zelo obrezano sliko,
(Laughter)
ali pa plešasti moški, na primer,
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.
namenoma izberejo slike, na katerih nosijo klobuke. A v resnici je to nasprotno od tega, kar bi morali početi, če želite biti uspešni. Namesto tega bi resnično morali poudariti, karkoli je tisto, kar vas dela drugačnega, četudi se vam zdi, da se boste nekaterim zdeli neprivlačni. Ker ljudem, ki ste jim všeč, boste vseeno všeč, nepomembne zgube, ki jim niste všeč, pa vam bodo samo koristile.
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."
Prav, najboljši nasvet št. 2: Kako izbrati popolnega partnerja. Predstavljajmo si, da ste izjemno uspešni na sceni zmenkarij. A pojavi se vprašanje, kako pretvoriti ta uspeh v dolgoročno srečo in še posebej, kako se odločiti, kdaj je pravi čas za ustalitev. Na splošno ni priporočljivo, da kar zagrabite in se poročite s prvo osebo, ki pride mimo in pokaže nekaj zanimanja. A prav tako v resnici ne želite čakati predolgo, če želite povečati svoje možnosti za dolgoročno srečo. Kot pravi moja najljubša avtorica, Jane Austen, "Neporočena ženska pri sedemindvajsetih
(Laughter)
ne more več upati, da bo še kdaj čutila ali vzbudila naklonjenost." (smeh)
Thanks a lot, Jane. What do you know about love?
Res hvala, Jane. Kaj pa ti veš o ljubezni?
(Laughter)
Vprašanje je torej,
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.
kako veste, kdaj je pravi čas, da se ustalite, če upoštevate vse, s katerimi lahko v življenju greste ven? K sreči lahko uporabimo precej slasten del matematike, da nam pomaga in se imenuje teorija optimalnega ustavljanja. Predstavljajmo si, da začnete hoditi na zmenke, ko ste stari 15 in v idealnem primeru si želite biti poročeni pri 35-ih. Obstaja množica ljudi, s katerimi bi v svojem življenju lahko hodili in bi bili na različnih stopnjah dobrote. Pravila so takšna, da ko enkrat zagrabite in se poročite, ne morete gledati naprej, da bi videli, kar bi lahko imeli, in enako, ne morete nazaj, da bi si premislili. Vsaj po mojih izkušnjah sem ugotovila, da ljudje običajno ne marajo, da jih poiščete leta po tem, ko ste namesto njih izbrali nekoga drugega, ali pa sem to samo jaz.
So the math says then that what you should do in the first 37 percent of your dating window, you should just reject everybody as serious marriage potential.
Matematika pravi, da kar morate narediti, je, da v prvih 37 % svojega okna za zmenke vse zavrnete kot neresne potenciale za poroko.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
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.
Potem pa bi morali izbrati naslednjo osebo, ki pride mimo in je boljša od vseh, ki ste jih videli do takrat. Tu je primer. Če to naredite, se lahko dejansko matematično dokaže, da je to najboljši možni način za povečanje vaših možnosti za najdbo popolnega partnerja. Žal vam moram povedati, da ta metoda prinaša tudi določena tveganja. Na primer, predstavljajte si, da se je vaš popolni partner pojavil med prvimi 37 odstotki. Žal bi jih morali zavrniti.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
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.
Če sledite matematiki, se bojim, da nihče ne pride mimo, ki bi bil boljši kot vsi, ki ste jih videli pred tem, zato morate še naprej vse zavračati in umreti sami.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
Probably surrounded by cats ...
Verjetno obkroženi z mačkami, ki grizljajo vaše ostanke.
(Laughter)
nibbling at your remains.
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 ...
Prav, drugo tveganje je, če si namesto tega predstavljate, da so prvi ljudje, s katerimi ste šli na zmenek v prvih 37 %, tako neverjetno pusti, dolgočasni, grozni ljudje. To je sicer v redu, ker ste v fazi zavračanja, tako da je to ok, lahko jih zavrnete. Ampak potem si predstavljajte, da je naslednja oseba, ki pride mimo, le neznatno manj dolgočasna, pusta in grozna,
(Laughter)
than everybody that you've seen before. Now, if you are following the maths, I'm afraid you have to marry them ...
kot vsi, ki ste jih videli do takrat. Če sledite matematiki, se bojim, da se morate poročiti z njo
(Laughter)
in končati v razmerju, ki je, odkrito, neoptimalna.
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.
Se opravičujem. Vendar mislim, da je tu priložnost za Hallmark, da to unovči in resnično zadovolji ta trg. Kartica za Valentinovo kot je ta. (smeh)
(Laughter)
"Moj dragi mož, si neznatno manj grozen,
"My darling husband, you are marginally less terrible than the first 37 percent of people I dated."
kot prvih 37 odstotkov ljudi, s katerimi sem bila na zmenku."
(Laughter)
V bistvu je bolj romantično, kot mi običajno uspeva.
It's actually more romantic than I normally manage.
(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.
Ta metoda vam torej ne daje 100 odstotne stopnje uspeha, vendar ni druge možne strategije, ki bi lahko bila boljša. Pravzaprav so v divjini določene vrste rib, ki sledijo in uporabljajo prav to strategijo. Tako zavrnejo vsakega možnega snubca, ki se pojavi v prvih 37 odstotkih sezone parjenja, potem pa izberejo prvo naslednjo ribo, ki pride mimo po tem oknu, ki je, ne vem, večja in postavnejša, kot vse ribe, ki so jih videle do takrat. Prav tako mislim, da podzavestno ljudje na nek način to tako ali tako počnemo. Nekaj časa si damo, da raziščemo teren, dobimo občutek za tržišče ali karkoli, ko smo mladi. Resno začnemo gledati za potencialnimi kandidati za poroko, ko pridemo v srednja do pozna dvajseta. Mislim, da je to prepričljiv dokaz, če je sploh bil potreben, da so vsakogaršnji možgani narejeni tako, da so vsaj malo matematični.
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?
Prav, to je bil najboljši nasvet št. 2. Zdaj pa najboljši nasvet št. 3: Kako se izogniti ločitvi. Prav, zamislimo si torej, da ste si izbrali popolnega partnerja in se ustaljujete v doživljenjsko razmerje z njim. Rada si mislim, da bi se vsak rad izognil ločitvi, razen, ne vem, Piers Morganove žene, mogoče?
(Laughter)
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.
A žalostno dejstvo sodobnega življenja je, da se vsak drug zakon v Združenih državah konča z razvezo, ostali svet pa ne zaostaja veliko. Morda se vam lahko oprosti, da mislite, da prepiri, ki se pojavijo pred razdorom zakona niso idealni kandidat za matematično preiskavo. Kot prvo je zelo težko vedeti, kaj bi naj meril, ali kaj bi naj preštel. A to ni ustavilo psihologa Johna Gottmana, ki je naredil natančno to. Gottman je opazoval stotine parov, ki so se pogovarjali in posnel, torej, vse, kar si lahko zamislite. Tako je posnel vse, kar je bilo izrečeno v pogovoru, posnel je prevodnost njune kože, posnel je njuno obrazno mimiko, njun srčni utrip, njun krvni tlak, v bistvu vse, razen tega, ali ima žena vedno vse prav ali ne, kar, mimogrede, seveda ima. A Gottman je s svojo ekipo odkril, da je en od najpomembnejših napovedovalcev, ali se bo par razšel ali ne, bilo to, kako pozitiven ali negativen je bil v pogovoru vsak od partnerjev.
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.
Pari z zelo nizkim tveganjem so dobili veliko več pozitivnih točk na Gottmanovi lestvici kot negativnih. Medtem ko so se slaba razmerja, s čimer mislim, da se bosta verjetno ločila, znašla v spirali negativnosti. Samo z uporabo teh preprostih idej je Gottman s svojo ekipo uspel predvideti, ali se bo določen par ločil z 90-odstotno natančnostjo. Vendar so šele takrat, ko se je združil z matematikom Jamesom Murrayjem, resnično začeli razumeti, kaj povzroča te spirale negativnosti in kako se pojavijo. Rezultati, ki so jih odkrili, so po mojem mnenju neverjetno in impresivno preprosti in zanimivi. Ti enačbi predvidita odziv žene ali moža, ko bo na vrsti v pogovoru, kako bosta pozitivna ali negativna. Ti enačbi sta odvisni od razpoloženja osebe, ko je sama, razpoloženja osebe, ko je s svojim partnerjem, a najpomembneje, odvisni sta od tega, kako močno mož in žena vplivata drug na drugega.
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.
Mislim, da je pomembno, da na tej točki poudarim, da se je izkazalo, da sta ti isti enačbi bili popolnoma sposobni opisati, kaj se zgodi med dvema državama v tekmi oboroževanja.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
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.
To - prepirajoč par v spirali negativnosti in visenje na robu prepada ločitve - je pravzaprav matematično enakovredno začetku jedrske vojne.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
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.
A resnično pomemben termin v tej enačbi je vpliv, ki ga imajo ljudje drug na drugega, in še posebej, nekaj, čemur se reče prag negativnosti. Prag negativnosti si lahko predstavljate kot, kako siten je lahko mož, preden žena resnično postane besna in obratno. Vedno sem mislila, da dobri zakoni temeljijo na kompromisu in razumevanju in dopuščanju, da ima oseba prostor, da je, kar je. Tako bi si mislila, da so morda najuspešnejša razmerja tista, ki imajo zelo visok prag negativnosti. Kjer pari pustijo, da gredo stvari mimo, in jih privlečejo na dan samo, če so resnično velika stvar. V resnici pa so matematika in kasnejša odkritja ekipe pokazala ravno nasprotno. Najboljši pari, ali najuspešnejši pari so tisti, ki imajo zelo nizek prag negativnosti. To so pari, ki ničemur ne dovolijo, da gre mimo neopaženo in si vzajemno dopuščajo nekaj prostora za pritoževanje. To so pari, ki se nenehno trudijo popraviti svoje razmerje, ki imajo veliko bolj pozitivno sliko o svojem zakonu. Pari, ki ne pustijo, da gredo stvari mimo in pari, ki ne pustijo, da bi nepomembne stvari postale resnično velika stvar.
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.
Seveda je potrebno nekaj več, kot le nizek prag negativnosti in nesklepanje kompromisov, da bi imeli uspešno razmerje. Ampak mislim, da je zelo zanimivo vedeti, da obstaja matematični dokaz, ki pravi, da nikoli ne smemo pustiti, da bi sonce zašlo nad našo jezo.
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.
To so torej moji trije nasveti, kako vam lahko matematika pomaga pri ljubezni in odnosih. A upam, da vam bodo poleg tega, da so nasveti, dali tudi nekaj uvida v moč matematike. Zame namreč enačbe in simboli niso samo stvar. So glas, ki govori o neverjetnem bogastvu narave in vznemirljivi preprostosti v vzorcih, ki se zvijajo in obračajo in raztezajo in razvijajo vse okoli nas, od tega, kako deluje svet, do tega, kako se obnašamo. Zato upam, da vas mogoče vsaj nekaj od vas malo uvida v matematiko ljubezni lahko prepriča, da boste imeli malo več ljubezni do matematike.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(aplavz)