Could someone please explain how the ancient Romans, renowned, amongst other things, for their impressive monuments and buildings which would have required a fairly high level of mathematics, managed to multiply and divide (and I don’t mean their birth rate!). Try multiplying CDLVII by MMMMMMMCDXCVIII.
They used counting boards. Here’s are examples of both addition and multiplication using the counting boards.
Does this explain architecture too? I’ve often wondered.
[Moderator Hat ON]
I think this will do better in General Questions.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
I can’t seem to get my answer to print right, but here’s what I got:
MMMCDXXVIDLXXXVI
(All the letters thur the first “I” is supposed to have a bar over it)
How much extra credit can I get if I show my work?
It’s all a question of context. We’re used to the arabic number system, and so “104” maps to “One hundred and four” automatically in our minds. Similarly, I’m sure that Romans did the same for “CIV” - they didn’t have to say “C is a hundred, plus (I is one) less than (v is five) equals one hundred and four”.
And of course, there’s that pesky Roman question: “What the heck is that 0 thing?”
That’s an over-simplification. It is equally easy to read our current Arabic numerals as it is to read Roman numerals, but basic arithmetic is much harder in a non-positional number system, as the page on counting boards shows. Try dividing MDCCCXCVII by ten. Now try dividing 1897 by ten. It’s a lot less work to simply write 189.7 than to perform the complicated procedures for doing the same thing with Roman numerals.
Like this? M̅̅M̅M̅C̅D̅X̅X̅V̅I̅DLXXXVI?
This is an issue which has been causing me sleepless nights for a long time…, however, I have followed the link & am satisfied with the explanation.
You are well named!!
To those who went to the trouble of figuring out a numerical answer, my apologies. It was the explanation I was looking for not the actual number.
Thanks
Captain Amazing’s reply gets the medal. The numerical answer was irrelevant, the process is what I was interested in.
Thanks anyway.
[Slight hijack] Why do movies and TV shows predominately (at least in the US) use roman numerals for the date?[/Slight hijack]
Master Control: It’s probably even more common in British works; TV programs from the UK still usually have the copyright date in Roman numerals, probably because of the gravitas conveyed by using them. It’s not too bad when the date is MMII, but it’s very confusing when it’s MCMLXXXVIII or MDCCCXLVI.
This is somewhat related: Mesopotamian Mathematics. It shows how the Babylonian cuneiform number system was used to do arithmetic, including multiplication of very large numbers and the estimation of the square root of 2. The Babylonian system is simultaneously base-10 and base-60; there are symbols for 1, 10, 60, 600, 3,600, and 36,000. Since there are only symbols for 1n and 10n (where n is the power of 60 being used), it becomes very clumsy to write, say, 59: <<<<<||||||||| (with the symbols resembling < and | clumped together).
I’ve always wondered how the Romans said any of that stuff:
Hey dude my vision is XX:XX.
I’m C% sure that I’m right about that.
Today XXVIII soldiers were injured by a chariot bomb…
Christians XXIII Lions XXXV in wildcard playoff.
Any ideas?
I kind of think they are using the numerals for copyrights to disguise the date, so that years from now we won’t know how old the film is.
I know I comtemplated going to Roman numerals after I reached a certain age for this purpose, but my friends quickly got tired of the joke.
Interesting theory. Doesn’t make much sense in terms of many years from the copyright date. However, it would be a way of hiding the fact a film sat 3 years on the shelf because when first made it was thought to be likely a bomb, and it is being released a few years later just to try and cut losses at a time the studio had nothing else to release.