Re:Math and Analogies
by jacobolus on Wednesday November 28, 2018 @08:10PM
(#18557304)
> complicated rules for borrowing and simplifying [..] or they had nothing
Maybe you can explain what you are referring to here?
Ancient Greeks and Romans simply did not do arithmetic with pen and paper. They used a counting board with counters or pebbles (“calculi”), or for simpler problems used their fingers or did the work in their heads.
Doing computation was literally called “placing pebbles”, and to settle accounts with someone you would “call them to the pebbles”.
Roman numerals were not a tool for computation. They were a tool for recording data or results. The purpose of Roman numerals was to faithfully record in writing the placement of counters on a counting board. The position of the counting board (or perhaps in some contexts a pile of coins of various denominations) was the primary representation of numbers, and Roman numerals were secondary.
Maybe you can explain what you are referring to here?
Ancient Greeks and Romans simply did not do arithmetic with pen and paper. They used a counting board with counters or pebbles (“calculi”), or for simpler problems used their fingers or did the work in their heads.
Doing computation was literally called “placing pebbles”, and to settle accounts with someone you would “call them to the pebbles”.
Roman numerals were not a tool for computation. They were a tool for recording data or results. The purpose of Roman numerals was to faithfully record in writing the placement of counters on a counting board. The position of the counting board (or perhaps in some contexts a pile of coins of various denominations) was the primary representation of numbers, and Roman numerals were secondary.