12-05-2013, 05:54 PM
Roman Numerals
The Romans had a really interesting to number stuff. As you already may know, they are written with the alphabet letters I, V, X, L, C, D and M. But they actually have more story behind them.
As a fact, none of the numbers started out as letters. Much like our tally marks, the I is just supposed to be a unit stroke, not the actual letter I. At every 5 strokes, a V symbol was written, which is just the combination of two strokes, not the letter V. And similarly, a cross marked every tenth.
The 50 symbol, L, was derived from the mix of I and V together, resulting in a drawing similar to \|/. It eventually lost the left slash, and the right slash became flat to easen writing on stones, giving out the familiar L shape.
100 was written as a cross with an I in the middle, >|<. The unusual shape was soon simplified to either > or <, and in the end the < survived, being roundened to form the C. Additionally, the C could stand for Latin 'centum', meaning hundred.
500 was written as a < or > with a V over it, forming something like D (stroked D). And finally 1000 was < or > with a cross in the middle, forming <x>. This was simplified greatly, forming the M shape. The Latin word 'mille' also means thousand.
Finally, those complicated rules of placing a letter before to subtract from the number at the right is a modern convention. There was no consensus on how you are supposed to write Roman Numerals, and therefore it is techinically correct to write IIII instead of the usual IV: both are correct. Some oldschool clocks use IIII instead of IV to improve readability and avoid confusion to the similar number, VI (6).
Additionally, the ancient thousand symbol <x> was smoothened by John Wallis to create the infinity symbol ∞ , because thousand was regarded as a huge quantity in ancient times, and is still used coloquially in modern times.
The Romans had a really interesting to number stuff. As you already may know, they are written with the alphabet letters I, V, X, L, C, D and M. But they actually have more story behind them.
As a fact, none of the numbers started out as letters. Much like our tally marks, the I is just supposed to be a unit stroke, not the actual letter I. At every 5 strokes, a V symbol was written, which is just the combination of two strokes, not the letter V. And similarly, a cross marked every tenth.
The 50 symbol, L, was derived from the mix of I and V together, resulting in a drawing similar to \|/. It eventually lost the left slash, and the right slash became flat to easen writing on stones, giving out the familiar L shape.
100 was written as a cross with an I in the middle, >|<. The unusual shape was soon simplified to either > or <, and in the end the < survived, being roundened to form the C. Additionally, the C could stand for Latin 'centum', meaning hundred.
500 was written as a < or > with a V over it, forming something like D (stroked D). And finally 1000 was < or > with a cross in the middle, forming <x>. This was simplified greatly, forming the M shape. The Latin word 'mille' also means thousand.
Finally, those complicated rules of placing a letter before to subtract from the number at the right is a modern convention. There was no consensus on how you are supposed to write Roman Numerals, and therefore it is techinically correct to write IIII instead of the usual IV: both are correct. Some oldschool clocks use IIII instead of IV to improve readability and avoid confusion to the similar number, VI (6).
Additionally, the ancient thousand symbol <x> was smoothened by John Wallis to create the infinity symbol ∞ , because thousand was regarded as a huge quantity in ancient times, and is still used coloquially in modern times.