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?
Poznam odgovor na vprašanje, ki si ga vsi zastavljamo. Vprašanje je, zakaj črka X predstavlja tisto, kar je neznano. Seveda smo se o tem učili pri matematiki, ampak dandanes je prisotno v vsej kulturi ... X nagrada, dosjeji X projekt X, TEDx. Odkod to izvira?
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.
Pred kakimi šestimi leti sem se odločil naučiti arabščino, ki je pravzaprav izjemno logičen jezik. Pisanje besede ali fraze ali povedi v arabščini je kot izklesovanje enačbe, saj je vsak del skrajno precizen in vsebuje veliko informacij. To je eden od razlogov, da so ogromno tega, kar razumemo kot zahodno znanost, matematiko in inženirstvo, v resnici v prvih nekaj stoletjih moderne dobe razvili Perzijci, Arabci in Turki.
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.
Sem spada tudi mali sistem, ki se v arabščini imenuje al-džebr. Al-džebr lahko približno prevedemo kot "sistem, ki zbliža ločene dele". Al-džebr je končno v angleščini postal algebra. To je eden od mnogih primerov.
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.
Arabska besedila s to matematično modrostjo so sčasoma prispela v Evropo, se pravi v Španijo, v 11. in 12. stoletju. In ko so prišla, je zavladal velik interes, da bi to modrost prevedli v evropski jezik.
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.
Ampak ni šlo brez težav. Ena od njih je, da v arabščini obstajajo nekateri zvoki, ki jih evropske glasilke enostavno ne obvladajo, vsaj ne brez veliko vaje. Verjemite mi. Poleg tega ravno teh zvokov ponavadi ne moremo zapisati s črkami, ki jih uporabljamo v evropskih jezikih.
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.
Tale je eden od takih. To je črka šin, in zveni tako kot šh. Je pa tudi prva črka besede šalan, kar pomeni "nekaj", tako kot naša "nekaj" ... neka nedoločena, nedefinirana 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.
V arabščini jo naredimo določno tako, da dodamo določni člen "al". Tole je torej al-šalan ... neznana stvar. Ta beseda se pojavlja skozi vso zgodnjo matematiko, denimo v izvajanju dokazov iz 10. stoletja.
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.
Težava za srednjeveške španske znanstvenike, ki so morali ta material prevesti, je bila, da črke šin in besede šalan ni mogoče prevesti v španščino, ker španščina nima šh, nima tega zvoka. Zato so se domenili in uvedli pravilo, po katerem so si izposodili zvok CK, "k" iz stare grščine v obliki črke 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.
Ko so ta material potem prevajali v skupni evropski jezik, se pravi v latinščino, so grški kai enostavno zamenjali z latinskim X. In ko se je to zgodilo, ko so bili teksti enkrat v latinščini, so postali osnova za matematične učbenike za skoraj 600 let.
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.
Zdaj pa poznamo odgovor na naše vprašanje. Zakaj že X predstavlja neznanko? X je neznanka zato, ker v španščini ne morete reči "šh". (smeh) In zdelo se mi je, da je vredno to deliti z vami.
(Applause)
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