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?
Menda hammamizni o'ylantiradigan savolga javob bor. Savol shunday, nega X harfi noaniqlikni anglatadi? Bilaman, biz uni matematika darslarida o'rganganmiz, lekin hozir u hamma joyda uchraydi — X mukofoti, X-Files, Loyiha X, TEDx. Bular qayerdan paydo bo'lgan?
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.
Olti yilcha oldin men arab tilini o'rganishga qaror qildim. Juda mantiqiy til bo'lib chiqdi. Arab tilida so'z, ibora yoki gap yozish bu xuddi formula tuzgandek, chunki har bir qismi juda aniq va ko'p ma'lumotga ega. Bu biz g'arb ilm-fani deb biladigan ko'pchilik bilimlar, matematika va injeneriya deb ataydiganimiz aslida eramizning dastlabki asrlarida forslar, arablar va turklar tomonidan ishlab chiqilgan.
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.
Bu arab tilida bir katta bo'lmagan sistemani, "al-jabr"ni o'z ichiga oladi. Uni shunday tarjima qilish mumkin: "ajratish qismlarini tasdiqlash tizimi". "Al-jabr" bizning tilimizga algebra ko'rinishida kirib keldi. Bu ko'pchilik misollardan biri.
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.
Ushbu matematik donolini o'z ichiga oladigan arab matnlari nihoyat Yevropa kirib kelgan — aniqrog'i Ispaniyaga — XI va XII asrlarda. Kirib kelganida, juda katta qiziqish bilan bu bilimlarni Yevropa tillariga tarjima qilish boshlangan.
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.
Lekin bu ko'p muammo tug'dirgan. Shulardan bittasi arab tilida yevropaliklar uchun o'rganmasdan turib talaffuz qilishda qiyinchilik tug'diradigan tovushlarning mavjudligi edi. Ishoning. Bundan tashqari, nu tovushlar yevropa tillarida mavjud bo'lmagan turli belgilarda berilgan edi.
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.
"Aybdor"lardan biri — 'sheen' harfi, biz uchun 'sh' bo'lib eshitiladigan. U shuningdek 'shayun' so'zidagi birinchi harfdir. Bu so'z "nimadir" degan ma'noni, xuddi biz tushunadigan so'zni, qandaydir aniq bo'lmagan narsani anglatadi.
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.
Arab tilida uni aniq qilish mumkin, 'al' artiklini qo'shish orqali. Bu bilan 'al-shayun' — "bu noaniq narsa". Bu so'z XX asrda, ildizni hisoblash kabi dastlabki matematik hisoblashlarda uchraydi.
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.
O'rta asrlarda bu materialni tarjima qilayotgan ispan olimlarining muammosi shunda ediki, sheen harfi va shayun so'zini ispan tilida keltirib bo'lmas edi, chunki ispan tilida 'sh' tovushi ham, 'sh' harfi ham yo'q edi. Shuning uchun ular, bsohqacha yechim o'ylab topishdi, qadimgi yunon tilidan "kai" ko'rinishidagi "k" tovushini olishga qaror qilishdi.
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.
Keyinchalik, bu material umumyevropa tiliga, aynan lotin tiliga tarjima qilingach — ular yunon tilidagi 'kai' harfini oddiygina qilib lotin tilidagi X harfiga almashtirishdi. Aynan shundan keyin bu materialni lotin tilida chiqara boshlashdi, va bu matematika darsliklarining asosiga aylandi, keyingi 600 yil davomida.
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.
Endi biz savolimizga javob oldik. Nega X — bu noaniqlik? X — noaniqlik ekanligini sababi shuki, ispan tilida "sh" tovushi mavjud emas. (Kulgu) Va men buni sizlarga ulashishga qaror qildim.
(Applause)
(Qarsaklar)