Look what I found from Ask Dr. Math! *laffin*
Decimals and Roman Numerals
Date: 10/22/98 at 03:21:16
From: Richard Collecutt
Subject: Roman numerals
Do you know of any method for representing Roman numerals in a
floating point format? For example, does 10.5 = X.V?
Date: 10/22/98 at 08:26:37
From: Doctor Rick
Subject: Re: Roman numerals
Hello, Richard.
The Romans didn't have a standard way of writing fractions (or decimals.)
Usually, they just wrote out the appropriate word, such as "tres septimae"
for three-sevenths.
When they needed to do serious calculations with fractions, the Romans
used the uncia, a unit that meant 1/12 of anything. There were names and
symbols for different multiples of the uncia. For example, six unciae,
or 6/12, made up the semis. The semis meant one-half, and its symbol
was an S cut in half (this looks a lot like a backward 2.) Unfortunately,
uncia symbols didn't follow any real system, and they were never entirely
standardized.
Jeff Miller's page on the "Earliest Uses of Symbols for Fractions and
Decimals" has more information about the uncia:
http://members.aol.com/jeff570/fractions.html
It's important also to understand that Roman numerals are not a place-
value system; there is no ones place, tens place, etc., so there is
no "place" for a decimal point. If I were to invent a system for
writing fractional quantities in Roman numerals, other than writing a
fraction with Roman numerals in the numerator and denominator, I would
take a cue from the method, occasionally seen, of writing a horizontal
bar over a Roman numeral to signify multiplication by 1000:
_
M = 1000 * 1000 = 1,000,000
and use, say, a bar under a Roman numeral to signify division by 1000.
- Doctors Rick and Ursula, The Math Forum
http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/
Rita
http://www.riricyberhaven.com
Always take time to stop and smell the roses
and sooner or later, you'll inhale a bee.~~~
~~
I play games at iwin and won 2 prizes!
900 Mhz phone and a DVD Player!
http://www.iwin.com/login/register.asp?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----
post: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
url: http://theMezz.com/informant
forum: http://theMezz.com/bbs
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
digest: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
notDigest: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
___________________________________________________________
T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16
Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
