Re:How did anyone do math in Roman numerals? (2017)
by philwelch on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @04:02AM
(#23973473)
Tokenize, concatenate, sort, reduce.
MCMLXVII + LXV
M CM L X V I I + L X V
M CM L X V I I L X V
M CM L L X X V V I I
V+V=X, L+L=C, C+CM=M so MMXXXII. Convert everything to decimal if you wanna check my work.
Note that converting CM to DCCCC is actually pretty unnecessary since you can just combine CM and C to make M instead of having to count up lots of C’s. A computer algorithm would be simpler by reducing CM to DCCC but adjusting for human fallibility, allowing for CM + C = M makes things a little easier.
Also note that this method scales to any number of sums, not just adding two numbers together.
MCMLXVII + LXV
M CM L X V I I + L X V
M CM L X V I I L X V
M CM L L X X V V I I
V+V=X, L+L=C, C+CM=M so MMXXXII. Convert everything to decimal if you wanna check my work.
Note that converting CM to DCCCC is actually pretty unnecessary since you can just combine CM and C to make M instead of having to count up lots of C’s. A computer algorithm would be simpler by reducing CM to DCCC but adjusting for human fallibility, allowing for CM + C = M makes things a little easier.
Also note that this method scales to any number of sums, not just adding two numbers together.