I have the answer to a question that we've all asked. The question is, Why is it that the letter X represents the unknown? Now I know we learned that in math class, but now it's everywhere in the culture -- The X prize, the X-Files, Project X, TEDx. Where'd that come from?
Imam odgovor na pitanje koje smo svi postavili. Pitanje je: Zašto slovo X označava nepoznato? Znam kako smo to učili na satu matematike, ali sad je to svepristuno -- X nagrada, Dosjei X, Projekt X, TEDx. Odakle to?
About six years ago I decided that I would learn Arabic, which turns out to be a supremely logical language. To write a word or a phrase or a sentence in Arabic is like crafting an equation, because every part is extremely precise and carries a lot of information. That's one of the reasons so much of what we've come to think of as Western science and mathematics and engineering was really worked out in the first few centuries of the Common Era by the Persians and the Arabs and the Turks.
Prije jedno šest godina, odlučio sam učiti arapski, koji je izuzeto logičan jezik. Pisanje riječi ili fraze ili rečenice na arapskom slično je postavljanju jednadžbe, jer svaki dio iznimno je precizan i nosi mnoštvo informacija. To je jedan od razloga zašto je ono što smatramo zapadnjačkom znanošću, matematikom i tehnikom zaista i polučilo rezultate u prvim stoljećima naše ere, a potječe od Perzijanaca, Arapa i Turaka.
This includes the little system in Arabic called al-jebra. And al-jebr roughly translates to "the system for reconciling disparate parts." Al-jebr finally came into English as algebra. One example among many.
To uključuje i jedan mali sustav koji se na arapskom zove al-jebra. A al-jebr grubo prevedeno je: "sustav za usklađivanje nespojivih dijelova". Al-jebr je na kraju dospjela u engleski kao algebra. Jedan od mnogih primjera.
The Arabic texts containing this mathematical wisdom finally made their way to Europe -- which is to say Spain -- in the 11th and 12th centuries. And when they arrived there was tremendous interest in translating this wisdom into a European language.
Arapski tekstovi koji su sadržavali ovu matematičku mudrost konačno su dospjeli u Europu -- tj. u Španjolsku -- u 11. i 12. stoljeću. A kad su tamo dospjeli, zavladao je golemi interes za prevođenje ove mudrosti na europske jezike.
But there were problems. One problem is there are some sounds in Arabic that just don't make it through a European voice box without lots of practice. Trust me on that one. Also, those very sounds tend not to be represented by the characters that are available in European languages.
Ali pojavili su se problemi. Jedan od problema bio je što se neki glasovi u arapskom ne mogu proizvesti u europskim glasnicama bez napornog vježbanja. Vjerujte mi. Uz to, ti glasovi nisu se mogli prikazati slovima koja su postojala u europskim jezicima.
Here's one of the culprits. This is the letter sheen, and it makes the sound we think of as SH -- "sh." It's also the very first letter of the word shayun, which means "something" just like the the English word "something" -- some undefined, unknown thing.
Evo jednog od krivaca. Ovo je slovo SHeen, i stvara zvuk za koji mi mislimo da je SH -- "š". To je i prvo slovo riječi shalan (šalan), koja znači "nešto", baš kao i hrvatska riječ "nešto" -- neku nedefiniranu, nepoznatu stvar.
Now in Arabic, we can make this definite by adding the definite article "al." So this is al-shayun -- the unknown thing. And this is a word that appears throughout early mathematics, such as this 10th-century derivation of roots.
E sad, u arapskom, možemo je učiniti određenom dodavanjem određenog člana "al". Pa je to al-shalan -- baš ta nepoznata stvar. A ta riječ se pojavljuje kroz cijelu prvobitnu metematiku, kao što je to i u ovom izvođenju dokaza iz 10. stoljeća.
The problem for the Medieval Spanish scholars who were tasked with translating this material is that the letter sheen and the word shayun can't be rendered into Spanish because Spanish doesn't have that SH, that "sh" sound. So by convention, they created a rule in which they borrowed the CK sound, "ck" sound, from the classical Greek in the form of the letter Kai.
Problem za srednjovjekovne španjolske učenjake, kojima je bio dodijeljen zadatak prevođenja ovog materijala, bio je u tome što se slovo SHeen i riječ shalan ne mogu prenijeti u španjolski, jer španjolski nema taj SH, taj "š" glas. Stoga su dogovorom, stvorili pravilo po kojem su posudili CK glas, "k" glas, od Starih Grka, u obliku slova Kai.
Later when this material was translated into a common European language, which is to say Latin, they simply replaced the Greek Kai with the Latin X. And once that happened, once this material was in Latin, it formed the basis for mathematics textbooks for almost 600 years.
Kasnije kad se ovaj materijal preveo u referentni eurospki jezik, a to je latinski, jednostavno je grčko slovo Kai zamijenjeno latinskim X. A kad se to dogodilo, kad je materijal bio na latinskom, postao je temeljem matematičkih udžbenika u razdoblju od gotovo 600 godina.
But now we have the answer to our question. Why is it that X is the unknown? X is the unknown because you can't say "sh" in Spanish. (Laughter) And I thought that was worth sharing.
Ali, sad imamo odgovor na naše pitanje. Zašto je X oznaka za nepoznato? X je nepoznato, jer ne možete reći "š" na španjolskom. (Smijeh) Smatrao sam kako ovo vrijedi podijeliti.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)