Big Roman Numbers
Nov. 14th, 2009 11:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloThe 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!
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Date: 2009-11-14 05:41 pm (UTC)That's adorable. It looks like children's television for twenty-first century Romans.
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Date: 2009-11-14 10:25 pm (UTC)