full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Terry Moore: Why is 'x' the unknown?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Here's one of the cpirtuls. 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.

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 elary mathematics, such as this 10th-century derivation of rtoos.

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 spsinah doesn't have that SH, that "sh" sound. So by convention, they created a rule in which they borrowed the CK sunod, "ck" sound, from the classical Greek in the form of the lteetr Kai.

Open Cloze


Here's one of the ________. 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.

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 _____ mathematics, such as this 10th-century derivation of _____.

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 _______ doesn't have that SH, that "sh" sound. So by convention, they created a rule in which they borrowed the CK _____, "ck" sound, from the classical Greek in the form of the ______ Kai.

Solution


  1. early
  2. letter
  3. sound
  4. spanish
  5. culprits
  6. roots

Original Text


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.

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.

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.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations




Important Words


  1. adding
  2. appears
  3. arabic
  4. article
  5. borrowed
  6. ck
  7. classical
  8. convention
  9. created
  10. culprits
  11. definite
  12. derivation
  13. early
  14. english
  15. form
  16. greek
  17. kai
  18. letter
  19. material
  20. mathematics
  21. means
  22. medieval
  23. problem
  24. rendered
  25. roots
  26. rule
  27. scholars
  28. sh
  29. shayun
  30. sheen
  31. sound
  32. spanish
  33. tasked
  34. translating
  35. undefined
  36. unknown
  37. word