to 不定詞

Today I want to talk to you about the mathematics of love.

今天我想要和大家談談關於愛情的數學。

情態助動詞 A2

動名詞

that mathematicians are famously excellent at finding love.

數學家在尋找真愛上特別在行。

But it's not just because of our dashing personalities,

但那並不只是因為我們精力充沛的性格、

superior conversational skills and excellent pencil cases.

超凡的對話技巧，和炫麗的筆盒。

It's also because we've actually done an awful lot of work into the maths

也是因為我們真的花了許多時間精力在數學上，

Now, in my favorite paper on the subject, which is entitled,

現在，在此學科中我最愛的論文，名為

"Why I Don't Have a Girlfriend" -- (Laughter) --

「為甚麼我沒有女友」（笑聲）

Peter Backus tries to rate his chances of finding love.

Peter Backus 試著計算他尋得真愛的機會。

現在，Peter 不是一個非常貪心的人。

Of all of the available women in the U.K.,

在英國所有適宜的女性對象中，

all Peter's looking for is somebody who lives near him,

Peter 所看的，就只是那個住在他附近的對象、

某個處於適宜的年齡階段的女人、

somebody he's likely to get on well with,

某個他很有可能相處地不錯的對象、

somebody who's likely  to find him attractive.

以及......某個認為他也富有魅力的對象。

And comes up with an estimate of 26 women in the whole of the UK.

結果他估計在全英國大概有 26 位此類女性。

It's not looking very good,  is it Peter?

這看來很不妙，不是嗎，Peter？

that's about 400 times fewer than the best estimates

在無數聰明外星生命形式存在的情況下，

of how many intelligent extraterrestrial life forms there are.

And it also gives Peter a 1 in 285,000 chance

of bumping into any one of these special ladies

I'd like to think that's why mathematicians

don't really bother going on nights out anymore.

不再怎麼想晚上出去約會了的原因了吧。

don't subscribe to such a pessimistic view.

Because I know, just as well as all of you do,

因為我知道，如同你們所有所知道的，

Human emotion isn't neatly ordered and rational and easily predictable.

人類的情感不是那樣地秩序井然、乾淨利落、邏輯清晰，和容易預測。

that mathematics hasn't got something that it can offer us

because, love, as with most of life, is full of patterns

因為愛情，如同生命中多數的事物一般，充斥著許多規律，

and mathematics is, ultimately, all about the study of patterns.

而數學最終就是那研究規律的學說。

Patterns from predicting the weather to the fluctuations in the stock market,

從預測天候，到預測股票市場的開高走低，

to the movement of the planets or the growth of cities.

到星球的運轉，或都市的發展。

And if we're being honest, none of those things

如果我們對自己誠實的話，上述那些東西，沒有一個是

are exactly neatly ordered and easily predictable, either.

Because I believe that mathematics is so powerful that it has the potential

因為我相信，數學的力量非常強大，以至於它讓我們得以以新方法

to offer us a new way of looking at almost anything.

就算是和愛情一般神秘的東西也是。

of how totally amazing, excellent and relevant mathematics is,

I want to give you my top three mathematically verifiable tips for love.

我想要給大家三個最重要的在數學上可以驗證的愛情秘訣。

So my favorite online dating  website is OkCupid,

我最愛的線上交友網站是 OkCupid（網站名：好吧，丘比特），

not least because it was started by a group of mathematicians.

這並不僅僅因為這網站是由一群數學家所架設的。

on everybody who uses their site for almost a decade.

近乎這十年來所有該網站使用者的資料。

And they've been trying  to search for patterns

and the way that we  interact with each other

And they've come up with some seriously interesting findings.

他們發現了一些重要的有趣結果。

is that it turns out that on an online dating website,

how attractive you are does not dictate how popular you are,

你的魅力程度並無法預測你的受歡迎程度，

and actually, having people think that you're ugly

讓我向各位展示這是怎麼一回事。

In a thankfully voluntary section of OkCupid,

you are allowed to rate how attractive you think people are

Now, if we compare this score,  the average score,

現在，如果我們比較這個分數，平均分數，

to how many messages a selection of people receive,

of how attractiveness links to popularity on an online dating website.

在一個線上約會網站上魅力指數與受歡迎程度有關。

This is the graph that the OkCupid guys have come up with.

And the important thing to notice is that it's not totally true

that the more attractive you are, the more messages you get.

並不是越有魅力的人，收到的訊息越多。

But the question arises then of what is it about people up here

who are so much more popular than people down here,

even though they have the same score of attractiveness?

And the reason why is that it's not just  straightforward looks that are important.

原因是，並不是直觀的外貌是重要的。

So let me try to illustrate their findings with an example.

讓我來談談他們的發現，以一個案例說明。

So if you take someone like Portia de Rossi, for example,

everybody agrees that Portia de Rossi is a very beautiful woman.

每個人都同意 Portia de Rossi 是個非常美麗的女人，

Nobody thinks that she's ugly, but she's not a supermodel, either.

沒有人覺得她醜，但她也不是超級名模。

If you compare Portia de Rossi to someone like Sarah Jessica Parker,

如果你拿某個人，比如Sarah Jessica Parker（譯注：慾望城市女主角）來和她比較

now, a lot of people,  myself included, I should say,

許多人，包括我自己，我應該會說，

think that Sarah Jessica Parker is seriously fabulous

Sarah Jessica Parker 魅力極為出眾，

and possibly one of the most beautiful creatures

to have ever have walked  on the face of the Earth.

But some other people,  i.e., most of the Internet,

但許多其他人，比如，大多數的網友

seem to think that she looks  a bit like a horse. (Laughter)

似乎都認為她看起來像馬。（笑聲）

Now, I think that if you ask people how attractive they thought

如果你問人們他們覺得自己有多美，

Sarah Jessica Parker  or Portia de Rossi were,

and you ask them to give  them a score between 1 and 5,

你要他們給自己打分，從 1 到 5，

I reckon that they'd average out to have roughly the same score.

我猜他們也會大約給一個和大家都差不多的數字。

But the way that people would vote would be very different.

但是人們投票的方式各自不同。

So Portia's scores would all be clustered around the 4

因此 Portia 的分數會聚集在 4 分左右，

because everybody agrees  that she's very beautiful,

因為所有人都同意，她非常美麗，

whereas Sarah Jessica Parker completely divides opinion.

然而人們對 Sarah Jessica Parker卻有截然不同的意見。

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