How Did X Become the Unknown (and so much else)?
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- čas přidán 6. 06. 2024
- A truly X-cellent and X-ceptional video…
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Despite being one of the rarest letters in English, the letter X is everywhere. We sign letters with it, we rate movies with it, we name all sorts of things after it. We’re kind of obsessed with it. And that’s probably all thanks to math, where X stands for the unknown. Let's explore the bizarre history of how X took on this role…
References: sites.google.com/view/why-are...
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So now you know how X took over math, but let's give it some love in regular language: Post your favorite word containing X below! Mine is *equinox*
Crux
xes
Xerox
I can't believe this video didn't include X by Xzibit
ex
X also implies precision. In carpentry and on maps, it allows one to define an exact point with two crossing lines.
And I suppose, it's oft partner O implies approximation - "around about here".
you might even say "in carpentry and cartography"
Exactly 😊
It’s interesting how t doesn’t have a similar implication
Or at least on treasure maps!
8:10 X is important in printing because it reaches all 4 corners equally. It is the standard by which all letters are measured in setting a typeface. From it you can calculate descenders (e.g. length of the tail on letter 'g'), ascenders (e.g. height of a letter 'h') and differing widths of letters (e.g. 'i' is thinner than 'd'), to set the spacing of words and lines when letters were physical blocks plated with ink. The principles still apply in the digital equivalent. Different typefaces take up different amounts of space on a printed page (or screen) depending on their dimensions relative to the standard 'X'.
How is it your here 😂
Wait x is but X is rechtangler not squared
@@luzellemoller6621 Completely depends on the typeface. Both x and X are square in some typefaces.
Older x's had descenders
Aren't many (at least modern typefaces) intentionally not the same size for different letters because we don't perceive different shapes of the same height as being the same height
Saying X three times, reveals the mystery of creation of life too. Very mysterious.
xx.. wait a minute
Yeah, reveals, but now I can’t close this pop up that has appeared
Alcohol
X X X
Nothing happened.
best comment
I always thought we used x because it's rare in natural language use so that you can easily distinguish math from any letters used for the description.
Depends on the language and whether they use ⟨X⟩ on their set of the Latin alphabet and how frequently they use it. Thus, I don't think it was necessary about that.
But we use abc and pqr just as commonly in maths.
@@RahulSarode I don't think the other letters are used as just as commonly. The most common are x and y. I feel like letters other than x are used when you have multiple variables and are forced to use more letters.
@@Harry351ify For me it's more because a letter can give you information on what type of number it is. For exemple, n and m are integer, p is a prime, a,b,c are parameters, u,v,w is a vector, z is a complex , d is a line, e is the euler constant, f,g,h are fonction, i,j,k,l are somation index, q is the denominator of a rational... All letters have a sens in mathematics (and for some more that one (z for exemple is a complex or the thrid unknow real number)).
@@sion8e..explain heh 🙃😜
Elon Musk has a weird obsession with X
It's because x is so unique, important, and special, just like him
@@Iudicatiohi Elon
@@Iudicatio"unique" being a CEO of a company, son of an other rich dude, starting with everything to become rich, not really special
@@Goudlock😂 exactly!
@@Goudlockshhh. Fans ignore the fact he was already born rich and paid his way into a company to say he was a co-founder of.
6:30 Actually, in older Spanish (as in Modern Portuguese), a Sh sound did exist, which was spelt with an X. It fused with Spanish J in sound, and was thus replaced with J (except in some words). This is why in many indigenous languages of Latin America, the Sh sound is spelled with X, and why the name "Mexico", which comes from Nahuatl, is pronounced in Spanish as if it is Mejico.
THIS!! Thank you so much for pointing that out❤
And in Latin American spanish, the sh sound is still used
@@martinjoster3282 like in argentina if i'm not mistaken, right?
I’ve known Spanish-speaking folks spell it Tejas and Mejico as well
@@kaitlyn__L indeed
Given Descartes's decision to use letter at the beginning of the alphabet for known constants and end of the alphabet for variables, it makes sense to me that x is used more than z. I bet "a" shows up more than "c" too.
Indeed... Also I think x is the fastest when you are writing it down, compared to y or z
@@P_Chalou x and y (for my handwriting at least) are pretty damn close
wouldn't the alphabet work in reverse in this sense ? if A shows up more because it is first, wouldn't Z show up more than X because it is last ?
@@MrBong420swed I just figured ABC for constants, XYZ for variables, and you continue to read and use them left to right like normal western language rules. So A before B and C, X before Y and Z.
that makes sense @@gregsquires6201
At 2:35 The first '=' at the bottom should instead be '+' and at 5:12 it should be x² - 3x = 2.
Sharp eye you have there!
Saw that too 😂
Thank you haha
People love to whine and moan about _"New Math",_ but clearly the real problem is _"Ancient Math"._
Not to mention the solution to the first ancient problem is either 0 or a negative number and considering X is supposed to be the side of a plot of land both are impossible. Pretty stupid problem.
"X" is like an edgier version of "Q". Oh, your letter is a circle with a little diagonal line through it and it's used for sounds that other letters already make? Here's a bigger diagonal line with another diagonal line through it and it's sometimes pronounced as a freakin' "Z". Also, it hangs out with the weird letters in the back of the alphabet, not those respectable letters like "R", "S", and "T".
Why does this make sense 😭😭😭fr though x does belong with the other weirdo letters like z and y
That doesn't explain why 'J' isn't used even more. 'Q' and 'Z' also get thrown around a lot in both math and more general use for 'cool stuff that we want to assign a cool letter to', but 'J' doesn't despite even scarcer than all except Q. So what makes 'J' boring?
@@ArawnOfAnnwnMaybe it's because J looks too smooth compared to X, Q, Y, Z, T, and the other edgy letters. And that J is pronounced smoother and softer compared to the other letters like X, pronounced as EKS, or Q, pronounced as KYU
@@ArawnOfAnnwn Well I would say that maybe it's because Y and Z follow X in the alphabet, so it is convenient to use y and z after x is used up, for continuity. Ik that whenever I read/do math or coding, I use groups of letters like x,y,z or p,q,r or a,b,c. In fact when I make variables for loops I often use i,j,k. Maths also uses m,n a lot.
You forgot a few: SoS, pdq's, EKG, your Eliminopee's, XXX, and f....just the letter F!
6:42 actually Old Spanish did have a letter to represent the SH sound, it was the letter X! this is because the sequence KS from Latin turned into a sh sound in Old Spanish (like in "laxius" > "lexos"), which still existed in the 1500s and 1600s, but which shifted to a H sound in modern Spanish ("lexos" > "lejos"). It is now spelled as J because the Old Spanish letter J represented a ZH sound (similar to the SI in vision), but this sound also became H in modern Spanish so there was no point in keeping the distinction in writing, and since J was more common all of the X got replaced with J, except in a few words like México, which is pronounced as tho it was written Méjico.
In Portuguese and Catalan, which are both closely related to Spanish, the letter X is still pronounced as the SH sound, tho now Portuguese prefers spelling it as CH for similar reasons to the ones that led Spanish to prefer J for the H sound
Now this is all really simplified and dumbed down to the best of my abilities but there's still a whole lot of stuff that could be explained in more detail. My point is just that Spanish already had the X letter for the Arabic SH sound, so there's no need to say they borrowed Greek Chi, which adds more force to the hypothesis by making it simpler
Portuguese uses X for many different sounds. Yes, CH would be the most common - but it can also represent KS, Z, or SS, depending on the word.
In algebra, my thought was just as `a` is the first letter of the `abc` trifecta that starts the alphabet, and `x` is the first letter of the `xyz` trifecta that ends the alphabet, then `a` and `x` are the first choices for constants and variables, respectively.
My thought was simply that x is the least likely letter to stand for anything specific, since it is the least common letter to start a word. Turns out, there was a very practical reason for seeking a letter like that, when economizing jobs for early printing technology.
Pretty sure that's all that it was. I recall hearing that Descartes prefered letters from the beginning of the alphabet to represent known values (or constants or parameters) and letters from the end of the alphabet to represent unkowns (or variable quantities).
Mathematics dept. University of Crete teaches the same idea.
Bro is cooking damn
You spoke the logic and philosophy of X in the first few minutes of this very episode. It is, it’s very scarcity in language, called it into used in mathematics. What better integer placeholder to use than something that is so uncommonly used, it cannot be confused with any other use? Philosophy led the way X. It’s scarcity made it the perfect place holder for unknown because you cannot be confused for anything else.
That doesn't explain why 'J' isn't used even more. 'Q' and 'Z' also get thrown around a lot in both math and more general use for 'cool stuff that we want to assign a cool letter to', but 'J' doesn't despite even scarcer than all except Q. So what makes 'J' boring?
@@ArawnOfAnnwn sure does Q existence of the primary words in the language for example, queen. What is more primary in our language than queen? Especially in the 15th century there is no more primary title. Question begins with a Q there in lies the issue. The very notion that Q is uncommon belies the issue. That is the question.
@@ArawnOfAnnwn a,b,c is used for constants. x,y,z is used for variables. i,j,k is often used for summation/product iterators. So j does get used a lot, it's just that it's only used a lot in very specific types of maths such as discrete maths and probability / statistics. I don't think lowercase q is used a lot, but upper case Q means rational numbers and so it wouldn't be used in algebra, it would be used in like set theory.
@@SergeyVBD That's in math. I'm talking about how much it's being used generally, in popular parlance. We gave X the name of an entire generation - Gen X - but no one cares to talk about a Gen J, cos J just isn't considered cool.
It's definitely not just a placeholder for integers. I would say n or k are used more for integers compared to x. But I agree that x is usually the variable you're solving for, compared to n or k which are used more in summations or sequences.
I think it's important to include the shape of X, it's a very satisfying & easy thing to draw. Like X is more fun to draw than +, that's a little weird.
The Greek letter for x is Ξ (capital) or ξ, lower case, not Χ. It is pronounced ksee. Chi is a fricative, like the ch in German Bach.
The x in old Spanish was in fact pronounced like English sh, so such a translation from Arabic would have made perfect sense.
It's true that Old Spanish has the /sh/ sound (or close to it) for x. We can see this in the French translation of Don Quixote (Don Quichotte). The problem is, there's no example that I know of where an Arabic "sheen" was transliterated to Spanish x. It's a good correlation but I can't find any actual links.
And chi and xi both derive from the same Phonecian root "letter", with xi being more ancient than chi
@@besmartTHE LETTER Ξ HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH Χ
Xi = Ξ ξ
Chi = Χ χ
We're looking at the Greek letter itself, not the Roman spelling of how we say it.
X it's also one of the only letters that you can use as something other than a letter. Like when you cross out something on paper.
I would argue that v can be used to show "insert here"
O
Interesting video. I knew pieces of this, but it's nice to see it all put together. Minor critique though. I'm studying Arabic, and I noticed that شيء is incorrectly written left to right at 6:20.
الكتابة شيء صعب
(Had to use all my knowledge from Duolingo for this)
I bet it was copied and pasted from somewhere and missed the RTL Unicode character
There's definitely some sort of bug because they're all in isolated form.
Fun fact, today the sound of "X" in the modern Greek alphabet is written like "Ξ", which is almost identical to the ancient Phoenician one at 1:29!
Additionally, X is used to indicate negation or important things (as in "X marks the spot"). By the way, in Mexican Spanish, calling something or someone X ("equis") means that it is irrelevant or indifferent (like saying "meh" or "whatever").
Is that why actual latinos hate the politically correct term, "Latinx"?
In Boolean Algebra when used with binary maths symbols, "X" is used for "don't care" which means it doesn't matter if 0 (false) or 1 (true) is used, the answer is the same. Eg. 0 + 1 = 1 as well as 1 + 1 = 1 (+ means OR, . means AND, ~ means NOT), so X + 1 = 1 and X . 0 = 0
This sort of video is such a treat to watch at early morning being all comfy as it also pacifies my heart as I am learning something 😅
This is so well timed with back school 😂 I’ve been solving for X a lot this week helping my 8th grader with homework.
I remember, that in first grade, we learned how to write all the letters of the alphabet, but they kinda forgot to teach us how to write x (or I was not there or idk). So for me it was the unknown letter, making it a natural transition to an unknown value in math later in school.
Man, that's gotta be the perfect transition.
"We trained him wrong on purpose, as a joke."
TBH,the best channel in english!keep up the good work smart Joe❤
I love X so much that my most searched term on my browser is triple X
The movie starring Vin Diesel, right?
X one of the best and coolest looking letter. Sad how english make it seem useless
You forgot the treasure maps, where the X marks the spot you should dig, to find the hidden treasure.
My fav word with X is Axolotl!
The "we dont even need it" intro fit well with Xtwitter.
OMG! What a nice video! I've learned a lot. The history of the X is very interesting and quirky!
And now it's not uncommon to use symbols from, like, three different writing systems, which I think is cool because those symbols have their own meaning based on context.
I think it has more to do with the fact that it's not useful, so it's easier to use without confusing it with existing abbreviations and acronyms and such. And more importantly, it's simple and visually striking, probably more so than any other letter, and easy to write.
Well, it’s because it’s just such an X-cellent letter, that’s just why we simply love the letter X. 🙂
Its Xiting
X-emplary X-planation!
but it could just be egzcellent
xciting comment
Maybe it’s just old individuals that’s love X
Most people: *watches video out of curiosity*
Me: THE CONTINUOUS SEARCH OF A PERSON THAT ADDED LETTERS TO MATH SHALL BEGIN
Be Smart is remarkable. Thank you very much. I love you and I appreciate your hard work and effort you put into your videos in order to describe things as clearly and precisely as possible. ❤😊
2:35 oh no! The bottom equation shohld have a + as the second symbol, not =.
I feel that Elon Musk if secretly behind the creation of the video, lurking in the shadows....🤣
This video is sponsored by X Elon Musk
Or hes just making fun of the Elongated Muskrat
X is also completely balanced in all 4 directions and is the mirror image of itself in all ways. This makes it incredibly esthetically pleasing in my opinion.
So adorable information...Even i can't speak english but i could understand you easly.Thanks for this clear english and information and you gained a new subscriber )
By "WE" you mean Elon Musk? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Incredible, I am still an engineer student but have never learn a more clear way on the origin of algebra and how that leads to calculus with the importance of functions. Great work
Very good video! It has a lot of information.
'X is everywhere'
Almost every other writing system: Whats that?
2:15 I think this problem doesn't have a positive solution. The second one has size of more than 5. Therefore, its area is more than 25. Therefore, the total area is more than 25. However, there is a solution if you allow the plots to be points
The story of sound preservation from Arabic might make more sense if the translators were Portuguese rather than Spanish. The most common sound for X in Portuguese is indeed "sh", but it may also sound like "s", "z", or "ks".
Old Spanish used X for Sh just like Modern Portuguese, Leonese, Galacian, Aragonese, Catalan, Ladino/Judeo-Spanish, Basque, and Maltese. Spanish's Sh-sound merged with its J-sound and later became the guttural H we knew and love like in mejor and jalapeno (named after Xalapa, Mexico)
I'd bet $20 on a Spaniard being the one who translated it, given that the famous School of Toledo was pumping out new translations at turbo speed
Really fun video! Thanks 🙂
thank you, I appreciate this!
"You're blackmailing me!?!"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer 'extortion'. The X makes it sound cool."
Bonder!
"X"... A most ancient letter. Some say "kye," but the meaning is the same. Death... A letter that spells endings.
figured id find this quote somewhere in the comments lol 😂
Great video 😊
Excellent presentation,expert Joe Hanson ❤
8:13 A French printer wouldn't have a load of x's because it is rare, they would have a load of the most popular letters because they are popular. If, say, only 1% of letters in French were x then the printer would only have 1% of x's in stock. Given a letter with 4% frequency they would have 4 times as many.
Right it’s not like the casting block was often a single alphabet, it had tons of vowels and a few of each consonant. Statistical analysis wasn’t as hot back then but it still would’ve been distributed with Ds and Bs and Ns getting more made than Xs and Qs and Zs.
Making extra letters was actually rather easy once the matrix letter punch was carved.
They were just cast of arsenic doped lead.
The Pokémon franchise seems quite obsessed with X too. In the TCG you have Pokémon EX and GX, and then you have side/mobile games like Pokémon XD, Pokémon Masters EX, and Pokkén Tournament DX. Oh, and for those old enough to remember, the Japanese advertising for the second Pokémon movie - the one featuring Lugia - used an “X” motif to refer to that particular Pokémon as well.
Apple seems to be another huge fan of the letter X: not only did you have MacOS X, you also had the iPhone X, the iPhone XS, and the iPhone XR. There’s also Final Cut Pro X, and there used to be a QuickTime X as well.
I’m sure other people can find a ton of other non-elongated muskrat examples of our obsession with the letter X as well. 👀
doesnt X in a lot of product names just mean 10, because 10 is 2 characters whereas 1-9 and X are 1?
Love this video. X
tbh the thing i'm most amazed from this video is the fact that when you look at it relatively the graph thingy is suprisingly new
0:28 I feel that Q is just as unnecessary.
The Q sound is already represented by K just as Qu is with Kw. There's no need for the letter Q.
Getting with of Q and X brings the alphabet to 24 letters, a multiple of the venerated 12.
X shall not leave english
10:03 well it's rather a CROSS instead of the letter X ...
Cross marks the spot 🤓
X has a plosive sound which makes it pretty satisfying. That's also why the f word is used so much. It also looks pretty cool. So it's a case where the stars aligned
Y?
Mathematician here! Love love love this video 💕
I think names that start with X is pretty cool
I think it has a bit to do with how simple and elegant the letter is. X is very simple and district. Unlike p for example that is curved and also is similar to q d and b. And that matters when you're trying to grab someone attention, such as with a logo. That is not to say other letters can not have the same effect. The Q in game Quake is very iconic. But it does not look like your regular Q. While most uses of X do very much look like a X.
When writing quickly, like on a chalkboard, X is the easiest letter to write after the letter I. But in algebraic problems, I looks too much like 1, so X is more useful and doesn’t look like anything else. Also you don’t have to be very careful when writing X. With most other letters or numbers, there can be confusion, but X looks like X no matter how sloppily it’s written.
It makes me want to cry that after half a year of meds I'm barely able to keep up with your voiceover. ×
Great video
0:18 the ABCs should follow this
Is this a prelude to us staging an intervention for Elon Musk?
right???
Intervention for what?
@@mblake0420Treatmean... you know what we mean 🤜💥
To send the matones to that guata de foca
(jk)
What a great video to watch while procrastinating on my calculus homework!
3:01 I don't know about Brahmagupta, but as a child, my father told me how ancient mathematicians used seeds of plants to refer to unknowns in equations.
Upto this day, the term for algebra in Hindi is "बीजगणित" [beejganit], where "beej" means "seed" and "ganit" means "mathematics".
I think it's strange that the English alphabet has two letters that make the same sound as a combination of two other consonants, but not even commonly occurring consonant pairs. So not only do these letters not make their own sound, they don't even represent commonly used sound combinations, so it's not like they justify their place in the alphabet as useful shorthand.
Meanwhile, English has some commonly used sounds that don't have their own letters to represent them.
And one of the most common sounds which is "sh" doesn't even get a letter on its own. It's worse in German as the "sh" sound is written with 3 letters "sch"
@@maythesciencebewithyou Maybe it's possible to replace those combinations with some other letter. Such as "ʃ" which is used for this sound in IPA. ʃip, Deutʃland, ʃarp. But adding this may make English spelling harder and more confusing. And a better solution may be an already existing letter with diacritics, such as ś, š or ç. And such changes are kind of useless
By "we" you mean Weirdon musk?
This is my favorite one yet!
"Apps too i guess" is almost as good as "the social media site formally known as Twitter"
4:30 alkhuawrizmi used letters in math. Most famously س
Thanks for that video.
By the way, at 11:26 you pronounced _Descartes_ right by mistake lmao ^^
I never ever heard that anyone normal is obsessed with a letter
As possibly histories least subtle international man of mystery I'm flattered to be granted such a prestigious title
As a French I totally validate to the scene with the French printers.
I won't look or search trough hundreds of comments.. but 0:43 ... x = 2a , not 3a.. 3rd row should be x + x - x = 8a - 2a - 3a - a ... buuuut I have not watched any further yet, so maybe that is on purpose :D
Thank you...for this video
X marks the spot?
Nah, X spots the marks
I don't know if there's anything to this but X is perhaps *the* most kiki (as opposed to bouba) letter in the alphabet which helps to give it a certain edge and even somewhat of an aesthetic in and of itself?
Oddly, when I wrote 'x' in my algebra class, I wrote with curves, in a similar fashion to the Coco Chanel logo. Except meeting in the middle rather than overlapping.
@@dcarbs2979 I mean, it's easy to confuse with the multiplication symbol otherwise.
@@tntblast500 Often, when using 'x' in equations, the multiplication symbol is removed altogether. Don't know whether it's because of the potential confusion. For the same reason, I crossed the 'z' to differentiate from '2'.
@@dcarbs2979 Yeah, but often when students first start to learn algebra they'll still be using the regular all x lookalike multiplication symbol.
In my eyes it seems likely that the same sort of thing happened as what you feel when naming variables in programming. You want to make absolutely sure that you don’t repeat yourself on accident so you pick something you feel is „secluded“, „rare“ or „far away“ from the other variables you named.
You must program in a language without lexical scoping.
I was just talking about this very topic last week
"Every mathematician uses different symbols and no one could read anyone else's work"
- Excellent summary of applied mathematics.
I always find it fascinating how Pi became 3.1415..., because it was originally meant to be a generic variable in the equation and it just caught on.
It wasn't even used for the radius initially, it was used for the circumference.
why would it not be for circumference? if the diameter of a circle is 1 then the circumference is π
3:58 agreed.
7:27 also a picture is worth a 1000 words and I'd argue a good graph is worth 10,000.
So it's a much better way to display a lot of information imo.
Another Xcelent video ;-)
"Solve x" must be final boss in math game if there exists
5:37 Literally coding today
"we" are not.
Didnt know the person representing humanity would be here, sorry
The one clip with like audio hall echo effect threw me off while I worked listening to this haha
lol @ "Only if it'll shut you up, Xavier" 😁
the background music at 4:20 has a terrible 'semi-backing-up' sound in it that's very subtle and I didn't like it lol
5:52 there's a pi in the wrinkles on your forehead
lol
blooper at the end was best part of the video
the quality of his content is top notch
I wonder if the fact that "extreme" begins with the sound "ex" might've added to it
Yes, I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned. The Greek-Latin prefix EX- means "out", "outside", so these edgelords probably want to look not only mysterious, but also extraordinary.
0:54 theories as to y?
It's the letter after X, that explains Z as well. (It's the letter after Y)
Man, these babylonians thought they were smart and now I have to find x at school everyday.
Even Mutants are mysterious characters in the Marvel comicbooks universe so that's why comicbook creator Stan "The Man" Lee used letter X symbol or emblem on how Mysterious all the Mutants are.
x was chosen due to its relative disuse in regular diction. x stands out like a sore thumb amongst common words, such as a lengthy explanation of a mathematical theory. this allows the variable to avoid conflation or confusion with other symbols on the page.
Watching this video made me realise that I assumed writing math like we do with all of the symbols was a universal-always-have-been-that-way kind of thing... But of course it is such a recent thing and of course people used to just write them out in words and it all makes such sense if I just thought about for one second, but I never did because I assume the world is never-changing and permanent...
Yea its a pretty recent thing.
In 100 years, I wouldnt be surprised if more modern day math concepts end up being standardized into just one "programmign language" like regular old math s yntax is
Great Video!
One note, in Arabic, we don't have consonants linking together much, because of the different ways to spell each letter. So the guy's name is Al Kha-wa-riz-mi
as a programmer you become used to the letters (mostly in those groups) (a, b), (c, k), (m, n), (q, m), (i, j, k), (x, y, z), to write more than half of your code.
i supremacy
@@prammar1951 i mostly use i or idx for indexes j, and k if needed, but for other thing I use e for element or x, y, z if 2 or more are needed, when 2 arguments are needed I tend to use a,b an n, m, well programmers use the alphabet for another use than intended lol