It is assumed that, although Kandemirian and Monwaingi numerals have a different base number, they are otherwise like Arabic numerals with a symbol for zero so that the base number is the numeral for "one" followed by the numeral for "zero." They are not like the cumbersome Roman numerals which we still use for some purposes but not for calculation.
Roman numerals are so complicated that authors can get them wrong. In Colin Dexter, The Daughters Of Cain (London, 1995), Chapter Four, p. 20, Inspector Morse thinks that 1993 requires fourteen characters in Roman numerals:
MDCCCCLXXXXIII
M = 1000
D = 500
CCCC = 400
L = 50
XXXX = 40
III = 3
But he is wrong. It requires eight (which is still a lot):
MCMXCIII
M = 1000
CM = 900
XC = 90
III = 3
There is always some connection, however remote, between whatever we read.
Good night.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
M = 1000
CM means 1000 - 100 = 900
XC means 100 - 10 = 90
III = 3
Getting 1993. A dang good thing some forgotten genius in India invented far more convenient numbers!
Ad astra! Sean
Yeah, one of the major innovations my time-travelers introduce to Rome is Arabic/Indian numerals.
That in turn makes double-entry bookkeeping practical, and a whole swath of administrative improvements. Plus they introduce "modern" (1920's-style) filing systems.
Rome was an odd civilization. In some ways -- large-scale engineering, roads, bulk trades, urbanization -- it was a thousand years ahead of its time. In others (math, except geometry) it was rather primitive.
Arabic numerals, with a symbol for zero, introduced also in LEST DARKNESS FALL.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I would put that primitiveness seen in the Roman Empire largely to having only clumsy and inadequate numerals.
Paul: And we see the Nantucketers and the renegade William Walker doing similar things in Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time" books.
Ad astra! Sean
Ideational "inventions" are crucial. Modern math is essential to modern administration, for example. The Roman Empire had a surprisingly small central government, even in its later phases.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I like that idea, a bureaucracy only large enough for doing what really needs to be done.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, but the Romans had primitive ideas about what a government could do -- Diocletian's price controls, for example, or the terrible inflation of the 3rd century. Experience builds on itself.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Blunders and bad policies leading to failures like inflation and Diocletian's attempt at controlling prices were not limited to the Romans. These fiascoes are all too common now. To paraphrase Flandry they share man's splendid ability to ignore what history keeps shouting at them.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yeah, but we -know- now that price controls only work temporarily -- rationing during a serious war, for example. And we know what causes inflation.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yes, we know what causes inflation: too much money chasing too few goods and services. The problem being politicians, demagogues, and the people voting for them so often don't want to heed facts like accepting some pain now to avoid much greater pain later. They would rather listen to Keynes' failed advice than heed Ludwig von Mises or Milton Friedman.
The catastrophic inflation/debasing of the denarius during the Third Century Crisis of the Roman Empire is a classic example. Another being the gross inflation of the mark in Germany after WW I.
Ad astra! Sean
The rich want us to accept pain to preserve their system.
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