An Engineer's View of 1st & 2n Five

That's the problem with Roman numerals: try multiplying XIX by XXVII without using the Hindu-Arabic numbering system. Ho merry complicale...

or you have IV apples and Johnny took I apple, Julie took II apples and Sally took I apple.

How many apples do you have?

I had four apples, johnny took one apple leaving me with three, Julie took two apples leaving me with one apple which Sally Took so I am left with none: 4-1=3-2=1-1=0.

Thanks for the reply

in roman numerals please.

XIX times XXVII Without converting to Hindu - Arabic; can I convert it to Coins?

XIX can be Temporarily converted to XX and XXVII to one quarter and two cents :

XX times one quarter is twenty quarters = 500 cents plus II times twenty = 40 cents

we now have five hundred and forty cents but must subtract ten cents leaving five hundred and thirty cents. I agree that Roman Numerals were not designed for Multiplication - unless you add XXVII nineteen times - multiplication is successive addition

So simple, even a child can do it.??????

What exactly is the point here???????

That you can complicate simple mathematics into indecipherable gibberish????

The point I was trying get across is that there is no character to represent zero in Roman numerals. Very important character considering that can be valueless.

Unless you use the word 'nulla' meaning none......... but that's not a number.... is it?

The Maya Indians had a symbol for zero but Hindu-Arabic only created one when the banks needed it in the late 1980's. We have used a Blue background as Sky or nothing. My Great Grand daughter understood this when she used the computer key board: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0

Tens

1, 11, 12, 13,14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 0

2, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 0

3

I was going to stay out of this ridiculousness, but...

Normal people count FROM zero (0, 1, 2, 3, ...).

Just because some keyboard designer, ages ago, placed the zero key to the right of the nine key does not infer some kind of mathematical properties.

Are you also teaching kids the alphabet based on the keyboard layout?

Actually the reason about the placement of keys on a QWERTY keyboard is allot more interesting.

It's too bad that I'm too lazy to post a link.

Indians had zero thousands of years ago. In India there are two distinct cultures(Aryan in north & Dravidan in south)which the british rulers didn't consider when India got independence. The Tamils(great temple builders) in south not only had zero but also they used letters to denote numerals like ka for 1 ru for 5 Aa for 8 and so on. They used the cubit, 1/2 cubit(length from tip of thumb to tip of little finger when palm is open),foot as well as "katham" for long distance similar to a mile.

The problem of multiplying these two roman numeral numbers is the IX is one less than 10 which is 9; the next digit is 10 so XIX has a value of 19, the multiplier.

The multiplicand is 10+10+5+2=27. 19x27=243 + 270 = 513. I guess that is cheating but I could express the answer in Mayan Indian numerals

Larry,

Certainly you can find something more productive to do with your time.

This "system" is even more confusing than the last incredibly convoluted, nonsence you have already posted.

"Take away", is that they all have four symbols and the a new approach every "Five".

My "take away" is that this is a waste of time.

Good Luck.

You need to have about 100 beers with "heidi".

I can't think of a single logical reason why anyone would adopt a far more complex, unintelligable system to do simple math.

It's a solution looking for problem that doesn't exist.

I agree with Tornado, take up drinking and swear off whimsical math "solutions" where there is no problem.

I can't think of a single logical reason why anyone would adopt a far more complex, unintelligible system to do simple math.

It's because there are 10 types of people in this world - those who understand binary and those who don't.

I'm still trying to stop my VCR from flashing 12. 12.12... don't confuse me

So how does providing a tiny fraction of numeral notion history provide anything to a discussion on Engineering Careers or Education? Did you actually think that you were introducing these notations to anyone here for the first time? Trust me, this is well known information for anyone that cares to know numeral notation. What is particularly annoying is that your slide does not provide accurate column titles. I suspect where you acquired this slide from explained things in their text.

You left out my favorite ancient numeral notion systems, Babylonian and Egyptian. The Babylonians used a curious mixture of base ten and base sixty. (Remnants of Babylonian numbers lie in the time unit relationship between hour, minute and second.) You have to love the ancient Egyptian symbol for a million.