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A comment on MIT Entrance exam (1869). Parent comment

Re:MIT Entrance exam (1869) by makmanalp on Thursday December 02, 2010 @10:06PM (#1964597)
Those roman numerals don't help with the multiplication at all.
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Re:MIT Entrance exam (1869) by btilly on Friday December 03, 2010 @03:43AM (#1965205)
They weren't meant to. The purpose of Roman numerals was to be a convenient notation that you would read on and off of an abacus. All actual calculations were done on an abacus.
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Re:MIT Entrance exam (1869) by makmanalp on Friday December 03, 2010 @03:14PM (#1967286)
Right. That's why "for a Roman, mental multiplication was exceedingly difficult". The representation didn't lend itself to mental calculation.
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