Brief History
Roman numerals are an ancient way of writing digits that was used by people from Rome. This numbering system is considered to be one of the very first formal number systems that had widespread adoption. It was the standard way of writing numbers in Europe through the middle ages. Its widespread use in ancient times was a result of cultural and political influence by the Roman empire during its reign. Rome is said to have been founded around 850 BC, so this number system has existed for a long time.
The Roman number system has been replaced by the standard number system that we use every day (1 - 9). Roman numerals can still be found inscribed on monuments, buildings, clocks, or copyright dates on movie title screens. The large Big Ben clock in England is an example of a monument that uses Roman numerals to display time and it was constructed in 1852. You will also notice that names of monarchs and popes are usually followed by a roman numeral such as Elizabeth II, Pope Benedict XVI or Louis XIV of France.
An image of the Big Ben clock in England:
Syntax
Roman numerals use alphabetic letters to represent a value, they don't make use of commas which means decimals cannot be represented in this number system. A writer can make use of lowercase or capital letters to represent numbers. Before the middle ages, lowercase roman numerals did not exist. In some instances, letters were substituted depending on the location of use. For example, "A" could be exchanged for "V", or "O" for "XI". I have designed a table below that lists all the important Roman numerals with their standard number system equivalent.
The Numbers
| Roman Number | Standard Number | Written Number |
|---|---|---|
| I | 1 | One |
| II | 2 | Two |
| III | 3 | Three |
| IV | 4 | Four |
| V | 5 | Five |
| VI | 6 | Six |
| VII | 7 | Seven |
| VIII | 8 | Eight |
| IX | 9 | Nine |
| X | 10 | Ten |
| XI | 11 | Eleven |
| XII | 12 | Twelve |
| XIII | 13 | Thirteen |
| XIV | 14 | Fourteen |
| XV | 15 | Fifteen |
| XVI | 16 | Sixteen |
| XVII | 17 | Seventeen |
| XVIII | 18 | Eighteen |
| XIX | 19 | Nineteen |
| XX | 20 | Twenty |
| XXI | 21 | Twenty One |
| XXII | 22 | Twenty Two |
| XXIII | 23 | Twenty Three |
| XXIV | 24 | Twenty Four |
| XXV | 25 | Twenty Five |
| XXVI | 26 | Twenty Six |
| XXVII | 27 | Twenty Seven |
| XXVIII | 28 | Twenty Eight |
| XXIX | 29 | Twenty Nine |
| XXX | 30 | Thirty |
| XL | 40 | Forty |
| L | 50 | Fifty |
| LX | 60 | Sixty |
| LXX | 70 | Seventy |
| LXXX | 80 | Eighty |
| XC | 90 | Ninety |
| C | 100 | One Hundred |
| D | 500 | Five Hundred |
| M | 1000 | One Thousand |
After going through the table, you will notice that all subsequent numbers are combinations of the preceding number and the base 10 value for numbers greater than 10. I can personally see why the standard number system needed to be established. Simple arithmetic operations prove to be very difficult with Roman numerals e.g. X plus XV equals XXV whereas today we can write 10 + 15 = 25.
I wrote this article after I carried out brief research on the history of numbers. I got to a point where I tried to understand the reason behind all the developments in mathematics and I concluded that mathematicians over the years have simply made attempts to shorten the length of written symbols for their convenience.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and learned something from it, you are welcome to get in touch.
