Why is 'x' the unknown? | Terry Moore

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Jenny Zurawell

Translator: Nazarbek Nazarov Reviewer: Azizbek Nazarov

I have the answer to a question that we've all asked.

Menda hammamizni o'ylantiradigan savolga javob bor.

The question is,

Savol shunday,

Why is it that the letter X

nega X harfi

represents the unknown?

noaniqlikni anglatadi?

Now I know we learned that in math class,

Bilaman, biz uni matematika darslarida o'rganganmiz,

but now it's everywhere in the culture --

lekin hozir u hamma joyda uchraydi —

The X prize, the X-Files,

X mukofoti, X-Files,

Project X, TEDx.

Loyiha X, TEDx.

Where'd that come from?

Bular qayerdan paydo bo'lgan?

About six years ago

Olti yilcha oldin

I decided that I would learn Arabic,

men arab tilini o'rganishga qaror qildim.

which turns out to be a supremely logical language.

Juda mantiqiy til bo'lib chiqdi.

To write a word or a phrase

Arab tilida so'z, ibora yoki

or a sentence in Arabic

gap yozish bu xuddi

is like crafting an equation,

formula tuzgandek,

because every part is extremely precise

chunki har bir qismi juda aniq

and carries a lot of information.

va ko'p ma'lumotga ega.

That's one of the reasons

Bu biz g'arb ilm-fani deb

so much of what we've come to think of

biladigan ko'pchilik bilimlar,

as Western science and mathematics and engineering

matematika va injeneriya deb ataydiganimiz

was really worked out in the first few centuries of the Common Era

aslida eramizning dastlabki asrlarida forslar, arablar va turklar

by the Persians and the Arabs and the Turks.

tomonidan ishlab chiqilgan.

This includes the little system in Arabic

Bu arab tilida bir katta bo'lmagan sistemani,

called al-jebra.

"al-jabr"ni o'z ichiga oladi.

And al-jebr roughly translates to

Uni shunday tarjima qilish mumkin:

"the system for reconciling disparate parts."

"ajratish qismlarini tasdiqlash tizimi".

Al-jebr finally came into English as algebra.

"Al-jabr" bizning tilimizga algebra ko'rinishida kirib keldi.

One example among many.

Bu ko'pchilik misollardan biri.

The Arabic texts containing this mathematical wisdom

Ushbu matematik donolini o'z ichiga oladigan arab matnlari

finally made their way to Europe --

nihoyat Yevropa kirib kelgan —

which is to say Spain --

aniqrog'i Ispaniyaga —

in the 11th and 12th centuries.

XI va XII asrlarda.

And when they arrived

Kirib kelganida,

there was tremendous interest

juda katta qiziqish bilan

in translating this wisdom

bu bilimlarni Yevropa tillariga

into a European language.

tarjima qilish boshlangan.

But there were problems.

Lekin bu ko'p muammo tug'dirgan.

One problem

Shulardan bittasi

is there are some sounds in Arabic

arab tilida yevropaliklar uchun o'rganmasdan turib

that just don't make it through a European voice box

talaffuz qilishda qiyinchilik tug'diradigan

without lots of practice.

tovushlarning mavjudligi edi.

Trust me on that one.

Ishoning.

Also, those very sounds

Bundan tashqari, nu tovushlar

tend not to be represented

yevropa tillarida mavjud bo'lmagan

by the characters that are available in European languages.

turli belgilarda berilgan edi.

Here's one of the culprits.

"Aybdor"lardan biri —

This is the letter sheen,

'sheen' harfi,

and it makes the sound we think of as SH -- "sh."

biz uchun 'sh' bo'lib eshitiladigan.

It's also the very first letter

U shuningdek 'shayun' so'zidagi

of the word shayun,

birinchi harfdir.

which means "something"

Bu so'z "nimadir" degan ma'noni,

just like the the English word "something" --

xuddi biz tushunadigan so'zni,

some undefined, unknown thing.

qandaydir aniq bo'lmagan narsani anglatadi.

Now in Arabic,

Arab tilida

we can make this definite

uni aniq qilish mumkin,

by adding the definite article "al."

'al' artiklini qo'shish orqali.

So this is al-shayun --

Bu bilan 'al-shayun' —

the unknown thing.

"bu noaniq narsa".

And this is a word that appears throughout early mathematics,

Bu so'z XX asrda, ildizni hisoblash kabi

such as this 10th-century derivation of roots.

dastlabki matematik hisoblashlarda uchraydi.

The problem for the Medieval Spanish scholars

O'rta asrlarda bu materialni tarjima qilayotgan

who were tasked with translating this material

ispan olimlarining muammosi shunda ediki,

is that the letter sheen and the word shayun

sheen harfi va shayun so'zini ispan tilida

can't be rendered into Spanish

keltirib bo'lmas edi,

because Spanish doesn't have that SH,

chunki ispan tilida 'sh' tovushi ham,

that "sh" sound.

'sh' harfi ham yo'q edi.

So by convention,

Shuning uchun ular,

they created a rule in which

bsohqacha yechim o'ylab topishdi,

they borrowed the CK sound, "ck" sound,

qadimgi yunon tilidan "kai" ko'rinishidagi

from the classical Greek

"k" tovushini olishga

in the form of the letter Kai.

qaror qilishdi.

Later when this material was translated

Keyinchalik, bu material umumyevropa tiliga,

into a common European language,

aynan lotin tiliga tarjima qilingach —

which is to say Latin,

ular yunon tilidagi 'kai' harfini

they simply replaced the Greek Kai

oddiygina qilib lotin tilidagi

with the Latin X.

X harfiga almashtirishdi.

And once that happened,

Aynan shundan keyin

once this material was in Latin,

bu materialni lotin tilida chiqara boshlashdi,

it formed the basis for mathematics textbooks

va bu matematika darsliklarining asosiga aylandi,

for almost 600 years.

keyingi 600 yil davomida.

But now we have the answer to our question.

Endi biz savolimizga javob oldik.

Why is it that X is the unknown?

Nega X — bu noaniqlik?

X is the unknown

X — noaniqlik ekanligini sababi shuki,

because you can't say "sh" in Spanish.

ispan tilida "sh" tovushi mavjud emas.

(Laughter)

(Kulgu)

And I thought that was worth sharing.

Va men buni sizlarga ulashishga qaror qildim.

(Applause)

(Qarsaklar)