Why Were the Romans Bad at Math? 

Sounds like something Pal Erdos said

Sounds like Hungary, they've produced some of the most famous mathematical minds of the past century for being such a small country

All I can say is Wow 😲 👏🏻

@@gkky-xx4mc Hungary wasn't always a small country in the past though, so it depends on the time.

@@MDP1702 It was, it was just ruling over big area of enslaved people. The area where hungarians were majority was tiny, that's why the whole thing collapsed in 1918.

Not quite an apples to apples comparison, but I went to teach English in Japan, so the language I har to learn was, erm, English. I couldn't even say why "a apple" or "an tree" were wrong, to begin with!

they didnt know how yeast worked, they just thought that their fermenting pots became magical after while not understanding that it was in fact yeast that were living in the cracks of the pot.

They also knew about soap and its benefits but considered it "unmanly" so they didnt use it.

Truth is most things can be created with very basic math, and the more complex stuff is really just to shorten the process if you have a pretty good grasp on how to do it. Theres not much that i cant build, fix, design or create. Houses, cars, electronics , my own lil inventions here n there ..etc. and i am horrible in math. It gets much much easier after you screw up your project a few times as well lol

@@worldcomicsreview354 yup, my inner thinking thought 'an' appears on words that is written starting with a vowel, but then there is 'an hour'

Please never speak to me or my children or my children's children ever again. /j

@@theonebman7581 it's a good pun. Admit it

@@kafkaesk3449 I hate you, I hate myself, I hate humanity, I hate you all! AAAAAAAAAAAAA *Imma steal it, either for my maths prof one day, or my kids one day-*

@@theonebman7581 I hope you're doing ok now 🤗🤭

@@dropPlaydead Hey thank you! likewise! :3

they didn't. this video is poorly researched. math wasn't done with numerals very often, it was done through the lens of geometry, shapes and such. integer focused math is actually relatively new enlightenment era phenomenon. back then numbers were for counting and geometry was for math. one of those things that we can't really conceptualize today, but they also had trouble with things like negative integers, so our current system has overtaken it for that reason.

“The Light Ages” by Seb Faulk can show you how math was done with Roman numerals well into the 13th century. It just makes your brain hurt when you compare it to the elegance of Arabic numerals.

They did math graphically....using physical 2D and 3D geometric shapes instead of number systems. And they did pretty complex maths this way. It was done this way until the renaissance period (I think).

They used the Abacus, it can do basic math up to division and multiplication.

Roman numbers are ideal for an abacus. On a Roman abacus, there are two rows for each column. The top row has one bead and is the V, L, D position. The bottom row has four beads and is the I, X, C, M position. in the old style numbers (VIIII = 9) you move up four beads in the I position and one in the V position. In new style numbers (IX = 9,) you move one I down and one X up, reducing the number of "carries" that you have to perform. The reason you don't have IIX=8 is that moving 2 I's doesn't help on the abacus. You can also use your hands as an abacus. Use your right 4 fingers as I's, use your right thumb as V. Use your left 4 fingers as X's and use your left thumb for L. You can count 0 to 99 on two hands.

Just make notes. > tfw no paper.

@@CountingStars333 even a peasant could get ahold of bark and transliterate it really poorly. there are frozen remnants of these bark letters between peasants, and bark copies of paper government edicts, strewn all across the more inhospitable regions of russia from the russian empire.

@@cageybee7221 There's a huge time gap but I guess they could still do that

@@canyou7670 that's just an example, russia's climate preserved these things better than others which is why it's easier to find them there.

@@cageybee7221 Of course

They were in fact too complex that their name became the word for "overly complicated or intricate" things.

The byzantines ARE romans. Rememmbee ,the term "byzantine" was dubbed a century after the eastern roman empire fell

​@@abinjjaimon They had changed substantially compared to say Augustan Rome. But it's natural for any nation to change as time goes on. Even if the Empire remained intact to this very day, it would certainly be totally foreign to the Empire in Antiquity in almost every aspect. I find the "they were nothing like the Roman in classical period" argument so weird because of that.

Romei, the name of the Romans of Greek culture, they called themselves that, not Byzantines.

@@abinjjaimon ‘Byzantine’ is derived from ‘Byzantium’, which was the name of the original city occupying that particular spot on the Bosporus. Constantine the Well Liked bulldozed it and built his New, Better Rome on top of the remains, which became named ‘Constantinople’. Western Historians always referred to it by the name of the city it replaced, because Western Historians are extremely petty and can hold a grudge like few others.

Sounds like you spade a moonerism

Didn't the Romans have bad hygiene?

@@FrdKal-Kal what? With all those baths?

@@helenamcginty4920 That didn't drain properly, in the public bath houses no less, that's the only gripe.

I dunno why, one of the best-preserved Roman baths is at Bath. (Though a lot of the finer detail, suspiciously not-eroded by the centuries, is actually Victorian)

Mind linking it

I'd estimate it's been ten years since I read the article I referenced, so I cannot recall the exact source. I tried to Google it up, and while it's easy to find articles on that topic, I wasn't able to narrow it down by including specific phrases I recalled from the one I read. Sorry.

I don’t think that exploring how quails procreate while under the influence of cocaine is that important nor will it lead to a great scientific discovery. Yet, the US government spends roughly $350k a year studying it.

@@w_6880 ...well, how do they?

I'm not bad a math... I diversified my knowledge in different topics Sounds great, will use that for the future lol

Good job

Build me your pc

Dagnabbit all that sounds cool asf, good luck!

Hola, una duda, en qué ciudad vives?

Damn hope you get far

It'll catch on, give it a few months. Second Thought, RealLifeLore, Wendover Productions, etc...I remember them having 2-5k subscribers for months and months until they blew up on one video that went viral.

And subs?

Its not the only informative/interesting video with low viewing numbers. Like Science shambles etc.

I thought this had a million views tbh, it was made really well

Rohan is here! Gondor has called for aid!

The Greeks had plenty of military innovations. How do you think they conquered the known world? This video is full of misinformation by the way. The Greeks were geometers, not mathematicians. They didn't use zero either.

@@marcv2648 Greeks _were_ mathematicians, and it is wrong to generalize that just because they used geometry to prove many theorems and a lot of them are in the particular field they were geometers, not mathematicians. At some point, Greeks even came close to inventing calculus. Do not try to discredit them with these theories. Greeks paved the way.

what about spartans and macedonians? They were greeks and pretty good at military.

You are correct that geography is so important. Is why America was such a powerhouse. To the north you had very few people due to the weather so it wasn't a threat and to the south it got really tiny so there wasn't enough population to be a threat, and to the east and west for giant oceans. It would be unbelievably hard to attack America.

@@marcv2648 that was macedonian still greece but they are in a different place compare to athens and sparta

I’m a math teacher and I try to stress the accomplishments and contributions of the Arabic world as much as possible in my class as we would be still adding X’s and V’s without it.

@@johnford6501 Well you clearly slept in History classes as these arabic numerals are Hindu. Arabs merely brought them to North Africa where Italians picked them up

So did you apparently, Hinduism is a religion, Hindi is a culture. That still doesn't denegrate the fact that arabs so effectively used it and spread it

@@varoonnone7159 In arabic, the numberals are called hind. Arabs copied many mathematical achievements of Indians. Greek also contributed. Chinese did the same. In mediaeval time, Arabs contributed more to it. The channel is eurocentric. They will remove contribution of all other civilizations to praise thei godfathers. They think logic is invented by Greeks. Lol.😂😂😂 I mean every other civilizations didn't understand logic.

And they worked in Post Alexandrian Greece where they are internationally connected despite the Diadochi War. Meaning they could exchange ideas and put to good use.

@@freneticness2136 They had amazing siege engines (some examples are Helepolis, fire siege engines not to mention they were the inventors of catapults, ballistas, crossbows and others). They had aqueducts and also underground aqueducts (city plumbing) and were also the inventors of modern type showers and water sinks in their houses. They had bath houses with hot waters and large theaters. All these especially in Asia minor, Egypt and in Greece. The technological advances were so astounding that Arthur Clark in the '70s wrote about the Greeks, that, if their insight was in parallel with their ingenuity, today we would talk about travels in colonized planets and not how to try to get to the moon again.

@@freneticness2136 First, they invented all of these things (in weapons and in urban technology). Second, southern Greeks were more foot soldiers heavy infantry style, while northern Greeks were more focused on cavalry and that was the combined arms army of Alexander that conquered the world. Third, they had siege engines with them and the engines were compacted and deployed when ordered (lego style). Forth, Alexander needed about 7 to 8 months to conquer Tyre while other conquerors nevered conquered it (where did you read that he needed years???). Fifth, Greeks also were using circumventing walls against cities to besiege them, they even did that before they invented the siege engines (catapults, ballistas etc) because it was the only way to do that before said inventions. Sixth, all Greek Cities were walled (I am sure that you have heard of the Long Walls of Athens) except Sparta and that was on purpose. Seventh, the walls of Mycenae were astounding for the Archaic Greeks (850bc - 750bc the time when Homer was alive) and that was the time when Greece went out of their 400 years of Dark Ages. After that they didn't marvel at them anymore. Eighth, the Romans considered the Greeks to be the most civilised people. For them to be titled Greek was the greatest honor. The Romans were propagating that they were the successors of Alexander's legacy. Their elites were speaking Greek to such extent that they abandond the use of Latin and we have writings of the common people of Rome that were angry at them because they "forgot" their mother language (Latin). Ninth, in the New Testament, Paul writes that in the eyes of God "it doesn't matter if you are Scythian or Greek", meaning that in the eyes of God it doesn't matter if you are the lowest barbarian or the most civilized person in the world. He wrote that at the height of the Roman period and considered himself a Roman citizen, but he used the word "Greek", not "Roman" to symbolise the peak of the civilized and cultured person. Tenth, what Arthur Clark said was in one small sentence the compacted achievements of the Greeks and their potential, if they didn't have civil war such a favorite hobby.

@@freneticness2136 Wrong on so many levels. Greek civil war was the major factor that brought the Greek Empires/Kingdoms to collapse. Rome and other powers just provided a little more push. Also, Romans almost always had Greek allies when fighting against others Greeks. Please read about the technological advancements of the Hellenistic period and how these advancements were halted in the Roman period.

@@queldron Macedonians aren't northern Greeks, they're an former tributary, aka an "barbarian" that became more powerful then the Greeks, they adopted Greek stuff, because they were stronger.

A Roman legion is often called a "construction company that sometimes does war."

@@Name-cz5jj They only burned them so others couldn’t use them, which is smart in war.

thats also because nowadays an engineering project cannot fail or someone gets fired because it can cost up to billions of dollars sometimes. back in those days you just had slaves do all the work and it would cost you a lot less. and if a slave got wounded or died in the process it would just be considered a suggestion for improvement.

@@just1it1moko I disagree. First, slaves were threated like property, and therefor looked after to a degree. Second, if Roman projects fail, you risked loosing more then a job

@@just1it1moko Yeah, ever heard of decimation?

It's time has come. The algorithm God has blessed thee

lol that was the first weird thing I noticed

An S after math sounds exceedingly bizarre to my ear, but I guess that's because I'm from the land nobody talks about ;-P. Nobody pluralize it here either except for the same snobs who get angry if you say soccer. Those people are also idiots because soccer is the only word they get cranky about that is different on one side of the pond than the other.

That makes me wonder, do non-Americans/Canadians regularly call science sciences or history histories, or is that just reserved for mathematics?

Proper English is confusing. Then along came American English and decided to change things up.

Short answer: Sometimes a lot better than we are. Florence lost somewhere around 70-80% of their population in the first wave of the Black Death but still maintained their basic government and social structure and literally became one of the main centers of the Renaissance. Now compare that 70% loss to what's happened facing a 0.003% percent loss of the population and you can see how much shame our ancestors are putting us in. They had a higher tolerance for mortality than us. Our prosperity makes us more strangers to crises. In some ways our advanced knowledge works against us as it engenders a sort of hubris and intellectual ego that shatters when nature proves that we're still mortal and fallible.

@@changer_of_ways_999that sucks

lol

The video also says that the Romans left the maths to the greeks since they were better at it. Well, it seems you like to leave narration, like here, to the British. So perhaps it would be an idea to actually let the narrator sound like a Brit. Also he would say IN-Quiry with the emphasis on the Quiry not the In. Little things, but they don't 'are grate.

Having an ability to learn from their mistakes and changing and adapting what didn't work. Is what made Romans so successful. However history tells that when an empire falls this ability was lost well before it fall.

@@Name-cz5jj The Chinese Empire is still around though and kicking

Now, compare that with decimal numbers. Then tell which is easier. Also, you gave examples of pretty small numbers and simple addition, subtraction and multiplication. How would you do squaring or cubing the numbers. Or, how would you write fractions and polynomials and equations?

@@user-pakshibhithi10 his point was that it's good for simple calculations, not complex ones

@@casparvoncampenhausen5249 For simple calculations we can just use tally marks too. It is very clear that Roman numerals are very inefficient.

@@user-pakshibhithi10 saying that it is clear doesn't make it clear. saying that you are right doesn't make you right. the romans had no practical use for precise numbers, if you disagree then please name the practical uses. but remember, OP is talking about addition, subtraction, and multiplication, which WOULD be hard to do with tally marks. Tally marks are WAY worse than Roman Numerals.

@@TheGreenTaco999 Tally marks maybe a little less better than Roman numerals. But Roman numerals on themselves have abysmal amount of use.

I have never thought about this, maybe the latin alphabet would be better to carving too 🤔

@@pedrosabino8751 yeah, Arabic is abysmal at anything other than fancy handwriting and specialized typographic tools. I say that as someone born into it.

Carve "1878" on a block, or do it with "MDCCCLXXVIII". The 2nd one takes a lot more time and also has curves like the first one. But the first one is only 4 characters and can be written with just 17 lines.

@@sophiamarchildon3998 Just carve D as a triangle and C as

@@sophiamarchildon3998 the Hindu- Arabic numeral system is indeed better in being shorter. Pure Arabic numbers, as symbols, aren't actually that bad, but the letters are abysmal.

For the same reason Americans won't use the metric system. We think everyone has to learn our "language," including mathematical language.

Because they didn't find it necessary, thus never did

Basically Romans where the Chinese of their time. Ok, China allready existed back then, so they were a copy ;)

Exactly. He kinda messed up on that part.

Newton and liebnitz don't invented calc it was already being used by lots of mathematians there is high chance greeks might be using calculus without knowing about peoples were developing lots of mathematical topic independently for instance. Number system we use today was being used in Indian Subcontinent in 1500 BCE greek and indian were in contact with each other from so long there were sculpture of Greek gods in Indian Subcontinent from maurayan empire ( strongest empire at that time ) they were engaged in huge trade at that time there were lots of cultural exchanges too Persian empire was in contact with Indian Subcontinent thats why al khwarizmi used indian number system concept of negative numbers was used by chanakya to show debt (he was economist too) he was royal advisor of mauryan empire. world was way to much connected back then. peoples were share there knowledge with each other. everyone was influenced by each other before archimedes peoples were doing trade overseas with ships. which makes me think that history is shattered. Euclid is called father of geometry there was another greek mathematician before euclid he wrote 13 book about geometry only 6 from which survived

*"school bad, i smart because i no like school"*

@@50shekels Honestly, I believe Public Schools should be abolished.

@@50shekels 'tis true tho

@@dl2839 Awful rethoric. Should've listened more in public school. F+

@@50shekels it is bad though. Most people don't remember much of the things they learned in public schools, public schools do a terrible job of showing the practical application of things they are taught (assuming those things are important), the like to fill the minds of students with useless and unnecessary things most of the time (i.e. like what's the point of learning the iambic pentameter), sometimes the things that are taught are counter productive and destroys creativity, lastly they suck up too much of the tax revenue. The cons of public schools are lot higher than the pros. Even then most of the pros of public schools could be provided by other, more economical and time-efficient, ways.

@CAT CHANNEL Not true, if you got two opponents fighting each other with swords or spears, the one with knowledge will win over the one who is only strong. Strong attacks aren't gonna win you a fight, precise and quick ones will. You of course don't need maths, but you mentioned "mind" and you certainly need more knowledge than strength.

@CAT CHANNEL in shooting range it by far easier, you add armor, logistic, and equipment then it more or less the same as the roman.

@CAT CHANNEL in wars single soldiers mean almost nothing, all you need is discipline and good tactics Physical strength is necessary, but people can be trained for that to reach an acceptable minimum

Decimal number system was invented in India. Not Greece, they had a better system than the Romans, but, they didn't use the decimal number system.

@@user-ds1qf6kw1j That system definitely didn't have zero. How come it would become a decimal number system?

@@user-pakshibhithi10 moving goalposts!!! no one talked that it had or didn't have zero, this is about rather or not it's got decimals!!!

@@TheGreenTaco999 How can a number system become "Decimal number system" without Zero. Did it have a symbol for '10' too. How could they write big numbers without Zero? The numbers should be written over and over to make a bigger number. That is decimal number system. How did they do that in that system?

@@user-ds1qf6kw1j It would be nice if you explain how that system works. Because I have no idea of it.

Gothic architecture was literally created because people liked big windows but a wall of glass doesn't carry a lot of weight The first few times buildings crashed down, but then, through TRIAL and ERROR, they figured that all those arches and columns and more worked They weren't great engineers, they only knew through practice

Applied physics and geometry is very different from theoretical. You don't always need to know all of the exact intricacies to understand something. As a very very simplistic example lets use throwing a baseball. You throw the ball, it curves and suddenly drops due to the way you threw it, you don't need to be well versed in gravity and friction to understand that "if I throw the ball like that it'll do that same thing again", its just an innate understanding, common sense. Then, later you can put the pieces that you've learned from various other things together to make even greater. You don't need to understand every minute detail to understand that things work in certain ways.

All about consistency + humor.

Came across this channel yesterday. It is excellent. Sure it is a pity.

In this case the channel hasn't got a cue about the subject. The roman number system is linked to nifty abacus with negative numbers.

The channels still uploading… wym

How do you know if a channel has failed?

I disagree the collapsed of rome didn't lead to a early enlightenment it led to a dark age.

@@thefutureisnowoldman7653 The colapse of philadelfia led to washington, rome just went to constantinople

Ww2 created lot of technology. Internet was started by usa military.

@@thefutureisnowoldman7653 Dark Age is pretty much a bs term. The Germani Goths who conquered Rome later swore fealty to the Emperor in Constantinople.

@@Name-cz5jj In a sense he addresses that point, by the fact that the Romans did produce a lot intellectual but how they demonstrated it was through public works and maybe not so much scholastically

Because it is. This video is just garbage.

Soon brother

GLORY TO ROME! HAIL THE EMPORER!

@@freneticness2136 Everything.

@@freneticness2136 Everything.

Which is your favorite mathematic of all the maths?

@@markwhi1 the one with all the letters

@@Jason-gq8fo Well that explains it.

Imagine being this mad over a video

@@riograndedosulball248 Imagine imagining people being "mad" because they presented a different viewpoint. Millenial? GenZ?

@@dinos9607 🤦 u did a mistake, entire global majority identify as roman spiritually.

"Greeks were far superior engineers than Romans. Romans just had the money" so literally the Greeks were superior in the subject's ideas but weren't applying it as much due to a lack of money? and that the Romans were able to preform more of the actual "doing" due to an abundance of money? theoretical: "concerned with or involving the theory of a subject or area of study rather than its practical application." having good ideas but no money. *greeks* practical: "of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas." having ideas and applying them. *romans* "they hired Greek engineers" not saying they didn't, but they did not exclusively, or especially hire Greek engineers to my knowledge. The aqueducts that stand to this day were invented by Appius Claudius Caecus who was Roman. This would be like suggesting that the following facts I will list in just a second suggest that Greeks were bad and engineering because of what they got from the Egyptians when in reality it just shows that great engineers come from all over the place and are not necessarily "from" somewhere specific, this gets interesting when you consider that the Romans also hired Egyptian engineers. "Greek early scholars were schooled in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians provided the knowledge base the Early Greek scholars needed to advance their knowledge. The Greeks were in fact obsessed with the ancient Egyptians." "Starting with the first “proto Greeks”, the Myceneans and Minoans, the Egyptians imported much of their culture towards Greece as a part of the great trade of the Bronze Age. After the Bronze Age Collapse, the early Greeks were heavily influenced by the more sophisticated Egyptians in the wake of the Greek Dark Ages."

@@TheGreenTaco999 Some of the most impressive architectural features in ancient Greece were those of the Minoans-Mycenaeans. And they do not at all look like "Egyptian"'for all the talk of "egyptian influences". There are architectural statements in Greece that predate pyramids (yes, including pyramids, in Peloponese, they do exist, in smaller sizes of course, but older than those of Egypt - the pyramid is an age-old design, nothing brand new even at the dawn of the the Bronze Age) .As for the arches you find in the Roman aquaducts these pre-existed and first (= first known to us) found in bridge building in Bronze Age Greece. The fact that Greeks were running their own affairs in small almost city-level states the biggest of which had less than the 1/1000th of the ressources of Romans had does not mean they were not able to build amazing things. Romans never reached, let alone surpass the Greeks in architecture, not in engineering. I am not stating this to belittle the Romans, it is just a historical fact. I already placed a nice example of the little island of Samos and what they did there piercing the mountain to bring water - an architectural feat far more difficult and far more complex than building an aquaduct, no matter how many kilometers long (it is just the same thing, long enough - once you have the ressources and above all the need to do so you do it). Where on earth would the Greeks need to build big aquaducts to transport water from far away? They always built their cities quite close to water sources and their aquaducts were thus local (and often partially or fully underground as well). I do not want this to be inflated nor do I belittle the engineering feats of Romans. I just tore down the idiotic notion of "theoretical Greeks vs. practical Romans". It just does not stand even the slightest of scrutiny. that is all.

Well, I think it fits a lot with the videos I make. Each is its own little adventure, a sidequest.