30 May
2010
30 May
'10
5:27 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2010 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: Roman Numerals ( was Re: Anyone off to VCF-UK)
Hmpf. Having re-read the entire page, I guess I was thinking of the full
stops after each group of numbers (e.g. "M.M.X." instead of "MMX")
and
Medievil Roman Numerals.
Though it is interesting that the final i can become a j, originally
introduced to prevent forgery (eg. additional i's being added at a later
date).
On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Andrew Burton
<aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
purposes.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 2:55 AM
Subject: Re: Anyone off to VCF-UK
Oh, they're quite fun, and are still used for decorative counting
Metric makes sense. Everything's in tens and hundreds and thousands;
unit conversion is trivial. The different measurements are all
connected - 1 litre = a 10 x 10 x 10 cm cube, and that much water is
1kg. Freeze it, that's 0?C; boil it, that's 100?. It all interlocks
like clockwork, no fooling around with 24 of this makes 1 of those but
three-fourteenths of one of them, and a unit of weight depends on what
you're weighing and suchlike nonsense.
It's about as sensible, practical and useful as Roman numerals.
Actually, I think Roman Numerals are pretty cool.
The primary snag with them is that they not only do not facilitate
arithmetic, they actually hinder it, as a non-positional system with
embedded calculations - e.g. MMIX for 2009, where you have to mentally
take one from the final ten to yield nine.
You could always avoid that problem by using an aternative notation (e.g.
MMVIIII)!!
Positional notation works much better, and for it, you
really need a
zero, which Roman numerals never fully adopted.
This is why most of the world quickly adopted Arabic numerals, which
themselves borrowed the Hindu invention of zero. Not only the West -
the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and other users of non-alphabetic
scripts have also adopted modern Western-style Arabic numerals.
> Ok, I only understand the
> particular format usually used for dates (e.g. MMVII = 2007), but I am
aware
> there are (atleast) two other formats for Roman
Numerals (neither of
which I
have learnt to
understand yet - as I haven't tried to).
Oh really? Such as?
I'm aware of using lower-case letters but this doesn't really change
anything.
> Without Roman Numerals, would we ever have had sexadecimal /
hexadecimal??
I don't follow. Hex is a straighforward modification of Arabic
numerals for base16 instead of base10. (As is octal). There is no
influence in it from Roman numerals that I'm aware of.
I was thinking that Roman Numerals was the first time (I knew of) numbers
being represented by letters, and that would have influenced whoever thought
up the sexadecimal system (I can't find any reference to them on wiki - I'm
sure it used to be there). Perhaps I was wrong.
Regards,
Andrew B
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk