What You Didn't Know About Roman Numerals 

I am suspicious of your claim that vertical bars around a value multiply it by ten. I can’t find that mentioned in your sources. Are you sure that’s accurate?

Ever since I was a small kid who first learned about Roman numerals, I've hated that 8 is usually written as VIII and not IIX

This is the definition of a underrated education channel

This is really cool! I remember learning Roman numerals in grade school and for some reason I never questioned how they did fractions. Maybe I figured that like the zero they just didn't have them. Thanks for sharing all this neat stuff.

I'm so glad I found this channel, I usually struggle with finding little channels with good content but this one is truly amazing. I hope the channel gets bigger 😁

Fun fact: M is the only Roman numeral that can be repeated 4 times! so the largest character used with this 7 signal system is The number 4999

We really appreciate the free educational videos that teach about history from a different perspective. Most students in schools today don't get to learn about these things this way.

2:19 Last time I study Roman numerals there are rules on subtractions that are allowed. Like You can only use I for V and X, X for L and C, C for D and M So there is no such thing as LD (only CDL)

Although it would've been tempting to use non-standard methods with subtractive notation to write roman numerals back then because, as you've shown, you could drastically reduce the amount of numbers you'd need to use (eg. you could write 49 as IL instead of XLIX), I think it would've been better for them in the long run not to do this. This is because if you make sure to use the I, X and C symbols before only the first two numbers larger than each of them (ie. I only before V and X to make IV and IX; X only before L and C to make XL and XC; and C only before D and M to make CD and CM), then that'd greatly reduce the amount of possible combinations of letters you'd come across. Therefore people back then would become used to seeing the same combinations of letters appearing over and over again, and eventually they'd be able to tell at a glance what the number is without needing to stop to actually work out what the number is. For example, they'd be able to tell at a glance that the XC in MCCXCVis 90, without needing to actually subtract X from C. So although some numbers may be longer than they otherwise could've been, if this convention didn't exist, then it would slow down and frustrate the reader because of seeing an unfamiliar combination of letters. And in general they'd just have to be more careful when reading the numbers, just in case a rare occurance of a IC or XD appears that they might otherwise misread, and that would slow them down also.

I heard about the horizontal line above numbers, but the other non-standard systems were completely new to me, that's so interesting.

1:01 I memorize earlier ones as following: I is one finger, hence 1; V is a palm with a thumb sticking out, hence 5 (hand has five fingers) X is two arms crossed, hence 10.

The first education channel that doesnt give me a headache and wants me to learn more and is funny

I'm always looking forward to your videos, keep it up! 🙌🏼

1:06 just remember this joke. Some Romans walk into a bar. One of them hold up two fingers and says: “Five beers, please.”

You missed the most important part! Roman Numerals show you how to set up your abacus. Since symbolic forms of addition and multiplication did not exist and the only way to do arithmetic was on an abacus or a counting board, roman numerals were surprisingly functonal for the technology of the day.

Loving your videos, it's breaking my brain. Keep it up!

It's always nice to just stumble upon a great channel

It's easy for me to remember M since my parents gave my initials, MM, for the year I was born. Also part of the reason I like Roman numerals so much.

If it helps you remember, 666 in Roman numerals is DCLXVI

Straight to the point, amazing.

Further 0=Nulla 1/288=℈ 1/48=Ↄ 1/24=Σ 1/12=· 1/8=1/24+1/12=Σ· 1/6=·· 1/4=··· 1/3=···· 5/12=····· 1/2=S 7/12=S· 2/3=S·· 3/4=S··· 5/6=S···· 11/12=S····· 1=I 2=II 3=III 4=IV=IIII 5=V 8=IIX=VIII 10=X 50=L 99=IC=XCIX 100=C 500=D 1000=M 5000=IↃↃ 10000=CCIↃↃ 50000=IↃↃↃ 100000=CCCIↃↃↃ 500000=IↃↃↃↃ 1000000=CCCCIↃↃↃↃ

The way I remembered it was to pair them up since each pair happens to line up with a modern two letter abbreviation. One and five make an IV, ten and fifty are XL, and one hundred and five hundred make a CD.

New to your channel -- well explained with excellent animations. Never knew about the fractions especially!

I wish I was taught in school like this. Amazing quality video!

keep it up mate i love ur videos

I am witnessing a great channel growing

I saw the title and thought "Hmm, we'll see about that!" I watched and what I saw was What I Didn't Know About Roman Numerals. Excellent vid.

Very interesting, Muddling the two systems is worrying. When working in a computer programming office some time ago, We were offered applications for a British computer Society competition , one task required was a computer program to convert between the two Number systems. Not as simple as first seems !! Thank you for your lucid explanation of the fractional notation in the ancient Roman number system and those interesting insights such as the backward 'C' giving the possible 'D' for 500 .

thank you for the amazing videos as always, also i wonder what the best and most efficient number system would look like

@ 6:11. With the backward C used in CIC meaning 1000, you can sort of see that this is the origin of the letter M for 1000.

What don’t I know about Roman numerals? After 1 minute - EVERYTHING !!

Historically Roman numerals were used (at least sometimes) purely additively. Such as having 14 be XIIII instead if XIV

i got recommended this by youtube, great video!

1:04 this. This is nice and comfy and nostalgic I am blown away to see someone else see it that way.

I thought I read or heard somewhere that apart from S=1/2 (or 6/12), they also used T=1/3 (or 4/12) and Q=1/4 (or 3/12).

Thank you!

you are REALLY underrated, hope you grow soon

I used them as chapter numbers in "Diamond Dragons" (series). 🙂 I don't know how many books I've seen which do this, but it definitely lends a different feel to the work as soon as you see the ToC. 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨

Thanks for the fractions New knowledge 👌

0:05 slightly shake your phone and the background will shake

1:40 Why not CIL ?

Today we are so accustomed to how Arabic/Hindu numerals are used, it is natural that we try to replicate this methodology on Roman numeral system: Such as excruciating procedures to perform multiplication or long division with pen and paper, and by extention argue that Romans must have been severely limited in any non-trivial mathematics. However Roman numerals were not used for symbol-manipulation maths. They are, simply, a means to record the state of an Roman Abacus. Any calculations would be performed using that device, and in the hands of a skilled user reasonably complex maths could (can) be performed far faster than pen+paper. The mapping to abacus state is also where the small-first-subtracts notation comes from, and explains its restrictions. The abacus has columns for powers of ten, and a column ready to overflow would be recorded as its denomination off the next column - IX, XC, CM, M((|)), ... Additionally each column is split into four lower beads - units, and one upper - five units; giving _, I, II, III, IIII, V, VI, VII, VIII, VIIII. (in whatever the columns units are). This again gives the short hand for one-off-the-fives; IV, XL, CD, M|)), ... This also precludes using other combinations in a subtraction role - IC, VL, or IIX - as these make no sence when transcribed to the abacus. Interestingly Abacuses also had columns for fractions. These seemed to vary - possibly specialised uses; but oft supported higher precisions than uncia 1/12ths. Given that most had an S bead, one might assume that 11/12 might have been written •I, or 5/12 as •S. But I'm not aware of any evidence and usage of fractions on abacuses is not well understood. Fun fact: China got the Abacus from the Romans, who got pasta in exchange!

On clock faces IIII is commonly used instead of IV to preserve a degree of symmetry with the VIII opposite.

Watched your speed of light and now love your content and addicted to watch your videos so please upload new one fast.

just wait a while buddy this channel will easily cross 1m if it blows sometime in future

This channel must get more attention! It's like on par with the channel It's okay to be smart

Bro your my favorite channel

I memorized the roman numerals by this sentence "MeDiCaL XaVIer" and it helped alot for me.

Quality quality channel

I was taught you couldn't write a numeral A before a numeral B if A wasn't B/10. So you can write XC for 90 but not IC for 99 since X = C/10 but I =/= C/10. If true, this means there is only one correct way to write any number, and for 999 that's CMXCIX.

Rome had some brilliant engineers. How on earth did they calculate with a system so complex.?

woah only 1,000 views??? this is a great video, you deserve more haha

great video

Thanks. :)

Lets go new video

I is a finger, V is a hand, X is two hands. C is cent for 100. M is 1000 for mille

I've also seen with vinculum that you can get extremely high numbers just represented as nearly two letters, such as a googol, with it having 33 sets of 3 zeros and one set of 10 being X, it could be written as (xxxiii)|X a ten multiplied by 1000^33, which is equal to a googol.

This channel is definitely going to blow up.. that means i can brag about being subbed before 15k jk

No mention of when double subtraction was used? Such as IIX for 8?

I love the fact that you addressed that the Arabic numeral system is actually the Hindu numeral system which was wrongly credited, because the Arabs only modified it a little bit

"In the time of Esther." Wow, did not expect such a culture specific time indicator haha

X means “10” in base 12 numbers. Remember that. L + inverted L = Blocky c. Remember: *_4_*_ x 2 = _*_13._* Because *D is the 4th letter* and *D is 500.* 500 x 2 = 1000 representing M, the *13th* letter.

There are actually two acceptable ways of writing 4. IV, the "legal" way, and IIII which was popular. Many classical clocks such as that in Capri, IT use IIII instead of IV. I, for one, love when clocks have IIII. Makes it feel so vintage.

*in American military r&d facility* "Alright, we have a backlog of gear we haven't named, any ideas?" "5:12" "Charles you are a genius"

And the reason that Roman numerals are used in copyright is because they're more visible even after physical film rots over time. Though another theory is that it's also a sneaky way to disguise if a given film is older, since they do take longer to read - which may seem silly to us because we can just look up when a film was made, but it could theoretically let theaters back in the day get away with re-releasing older material.

This is a great visual presentation. May I ask what program you use for these seamless flow of information?

As we add lines on top of the M, it was no use how big it is if you add more lines. Now we had to add Roman Numeral on the left of it (fractions not permitted).

this is onw of those videos you have no idea why you clicked on it but you are glad you did

Weird bit about fractions being sort of base 12 - there are some indications that fractions as low as 1/1728 were used - while the natural numbers are sort of in base 10.

1:17 That one guy: If you divide it by 100, that's the size of my-

Wow you almost replied to every comment on your video.Such a nice guy :D

Please upload regularly

Nice

My problem with it is mostly like your example of XVIXIII, because it can be understood as XVI XIII or 10+5+1 10+1+1+1 (16, 13) alternatively XV IX III or 10+5 10-1 1+1+1 (15, 9, 3) or if you stretch it X VIX III 10 10-(5+1) 1+1+1 (10, 4, 3) With knowledge of the system it can be worked out, without it, it's just confusing. Heck, even the chinese numeral characters I find much easier to handle: 零 0 一 1 二 2 三 3 四 4 五 5 六 6 七 7 八 8 九 9 十 10 十一 11 (10+1) 十二 12 (10+2) … 二十 20 (2×10) 二十一 21 (2×10+1) 百 100 千 1000 万 1 0000 億 1 0000 0000 兆 1 0000 0000 0000 Most of those folks have caught up with hindu numerals for everyone's convenience too. They still like to space out by 4 digits as opposed to the 3 digits spacing common elsewhere.

149 is also C (100) IL (50-1) CIL=149

2:42 What5 about IM?

I learned Roman Numerals in 1st or 2nd grade (1970s) and I never would left modify "M"s with "I"s, "V"s, "X"s or "L"s. The rules are you can only left modify as follows: 1000's place with hundreds (CM = 900) 500s with hundreds (CD = 400) hundreds with tens (XC = 90) 50s with tens (XL = 40) 10s with ones (IX = 9) & fives with ones (IV = 4) You can't skip way back like your were doing. I've never heard of that being "legal", as you say.

3888 is the title. Did it in my head!

Fun fact: nowadays roman numerals are to be read almost always as ordinal numbers. Years were treated as such, and year 2000 should be year 2000th. That's why the first year in the third (ordinal!) millennium is the two thousand and FIRST year. And that's why it makes no sense to speak about year 0.

This very much gives me the impression that Roman numerals were more of someone coming up with an immediate solution to a problem, rather than sitting down and trying to come up with an elegant system.

intresting, but how do you write fractiona that are not in base 12, like 1/5? i might use half-dots so 2 dots and 1 half dots are written as 1/5

One other issue is fraction representative (Fractiosentitivity) Because roman numerals uses 6÷12 1÷3 or 3÷4 would be useless But E for 1/3, E- for 2/3, E(2) for 2/6, E(3) for 4/12 T for 1/4, S: for 2/4 T- for 3/4, T/ for 6/8

how would you represent 2/5?

Imagine if Arabic numerals were used in the same direction as they wrote their words and we adopted that convention making our numbers in the reverse direction of our righting. If you think Roman numerals are an odd combination of other numbers, you should check out the French numerals!

Very cool! Did you used to run the channel called Wonder Why?

One thing which is confusing is that clocks with roman numerals use IIII instead of IV.

Even today, after over 20 years of knowing Roman numerals, it still greatly bothers me to see clocks that use Roman numerals to incorrectly use IIII instead of the correct IV.

When typing, you can use lowercase x instead of X_ (the line is on top, that's why lowercases are used.)

Imagine having to plan a building like the Colloseum with this mess

I absolutely agree with this video. No matter how much I love the Roman Numerals as a way cooler vintage equivalent of Arabic Numerals... It is undeniable that they are way harder and more annoying to use, more limited and generally not ideal for arithmetics. I definitely didn't know that you can write fractions with Roman Numerals, nor did I know there was a simpler way to write giant numbers like 100000, which I counted to be the biggest problem of Roman Numerals, as to write 100000, you'd need to write... _clears throat_ *MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM* (You get the point...)

just leaving a comment here b4 this channel blows uo

Someone: "Take that L!" Me: "You want me hold 500?"

what is it called when theres a roman numeral with smaller roman numerals placed on the top half of the number (like the ones used on numbers with exponentiation)?

I am impressed that you managed to make a thumbnail about roman numerals look interesting

Could you do trig and calculus in Roman numerals?

5:23 mmmmmm, monke

How did they calculate complex engineering like the Partenon, for example?

Imagine that you write something, and you want to use roman numbers because its cool, but the reader just sees MMMMMMMMMM

In your 999 example, only the first one is correct. CMXCIX. The others all break the rules for writing Roman Numerals. Your MMMIM also breaks the rules. It is *not* 'totally legal'.

The Roman numerals do have one advantage to Arabic in that it's easy to see a numbers relation to the next place value making it a little easier to add or subtract. For example ix + i =x, vii -ii = v and so on. It was how I learned addition as a kid, breaking it down into easier parts and then adding it all together at the end