Big Roman Numbers

[poliphilo]

The Romans only had symbols for numbers up to a thousand, so how did they cope with really big numbers- a million for instance? Surely they didn't write MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM......?  This was keeping me awake last night. 

I looked up the answer this morning. You put a bar across the top of a number and that shows you've multiplied it by a thousand. So a million is M with a bar across the top.  

Like so....



Simplicity itself! 

Comments

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

It looks like you are putting together your own version of Sesame Street - or maybe Playschool.

Is a billion an M with two bars above it?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Playschool does Latin.

I think two Ms with bars would simply be two million. I'm not sure. I believe the Roman system would have trouble coping with very, very big numbers.

Which is one reason we switched over to the Arabic notation as soon as it became available.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

It must have been hell trying to do sums in Roman. I mean, how do you subtract CMIV from MCXDVI? Without an abacus it would be terrible.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And yet the Romans were great engineers. They obviously managed somehow.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I misread that. Yes, I think that would work. I don't think it's common usage, though.