Counting on the Romans
The clock face at St Lawrence's church, Winslow. Note how the '4' is shown.
Roman numerals can be seen in nearly every village and town on the church clock. Sometimes you’ll see them on milestones or you’ll have a clock at home or a watch that uses them.
Many films have their copyright notice with the year written in Roman numerals, and the BBC used to do it too. Let’s have a look at what these numerals mean, and how to read them. Unlike our Arabic numerals the value of a numeral doesn’t depend on where it is in a number. If we write 511 we know it’s 5 hundreds, 1 ten, and 1.
The Roman numerals for 5 and one are V and I. Write VII, (a 5, a 1, and a 1) a Roman will read it as 7, they’d be right.
They had no numeral for zero, so where we might note down 500 for our 5 hundreds, no tens, and no units, they couldn’t. Instead, they’d write 500 as C. This example is simpler to write, but often their system of numbers was far more difficult to use.
First let’s see what their numerals mean.
|
Arabic |
|
Roman |
|
1 |
|
I |
|
5 |
|
V |
|
10 |
|
X |
|
50 |
|
L |
|
100 |
|
C |
|
500 |
|
D |
|
1,000 |
|
M |
But there’s a problem. Not every number we use has a Roman equivalent, so to write those numbers Roman numerals have to be combined. To make 6, a Roman would write VI; 6 + 1.
But to write 4, they would usually write IV; to put the I before the V means to subtract it, not add it.
Here are a few examples.
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