AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Roman numerals to arabic numbers4/24/2024 Imagine quantizing the values needed for such precise measurements within a system that not only can't express zero, but wasn't completely standardized. These aspects of Roman mathematics are what make achievements like the engineering involved in the construction of the aqueducts TRUELY amazing. Though their number system was decimal based, a root ten system, they used a value called a unica which was 1/12 of any quantity, there were symbols and associated words for values of the multiples of the unica, 6 unica is 1/2 and was called a semis, but the unica system and the names and symbols associated with it were never formally standardized. Having no numerals for fractional values they'd often write the appropriate value as a word, "tres septimae" for 3/7. Things were more complicated when fractional numbers come into play. And that's just some basic multiplication which doesn't result in very large numbers. This page explains that with useful tables. Multiplication, for example, is very cumbersome in Roman mathematics as two numbers are put through a series of doubling and halving and elimination of even and odd results. Subtractive shorthand (IV = 4) was not used by the romans in math applications, they allowed four repetitions of a numeral (IIII = 4 or DCCCC = 900 instead of CM as you'd see written today). Part the answer involves explaining that Roman numerals weren't used the way you're used to them being used. Although without them many great minds, wouldn't have the tools to solve them in an efficient way. Unfortunately advances in the pedagogic of mathematics are often under appreciated, because these people didn't solve some of the fancy problems. so that the poor common man will not be cheated when buying bread. Ries's Coss, which, contrary to contemporary custom, was not written in Latin, but in German, is a link between the medieval descriptive algebra and the analytical algebra of modern days. Adam Ries also called it radix, root or thing. The symbol for the unknown, or variable, was called coss in the middle ages. In addition to his famous arithmetic primers Adam Ries has also written an extensive algebra book: The Coss. At that time division could only be learnt at the University of Altdorf (near Nürnberg) and even most scientists did not know how to divide so it is astonishing that Ries explained it in a textbook designed for everyone to use. The book explains addition, subtraction, multiplication and, very surprisingly for that period, also division. The book appeared in 1550, printed in Leipzig by Jakob Bärwald, and was a textbook written for everyone, not just for scientists and engineers. Yeah he did some amazing things for his period: )Įdit: TL DR: Ries demonstrated that Arabic numerals are more efficient than Roman numerals for doing arithmetic by providing efficient and easy algorithms for day to day use. In German we still use the saying "Nach Adam Riese macht das. His work made the way of computing the de facto standard in the world. His book was used in German speaking countries until the beginning of the 20th century in schools to teach arithmetics. As far as I know several of those algorithms were made by him. This book contains most of the algorithms we still use today to compute sums/difference/multiple/ratio of decimal numbers, how to get a square root and so on. In his book " Rechnung auff der linihen und federn" (Calculations on Paper with feathers) he showed how to use Arabic numerals for the public and popularized their usage in his work " Rechenung nach der lenge/ auff den Linihen vnd Feder" in 1550. After years of research he discovered the Arabic numeral system and found that it is better suited for computation by hand. He started first with Roman numbers and studied abacus algorithms, and for his doctoral thesis he come up with a calculator board.īut he wasn't satisfied. Ries dedicated a lot of his lifetime at the task to make mathematics more accessible to the common people. The best way to understand is to look at the history of some of the lesser known figures in mathematics, namely Adam Ries: To view LaTeX on reddit, install one of the following:
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |