[SIGCIS-Members] History of Rome. How did they calculate?

[Cliff Jones]

Over many years, I asked several people about this but never got a satisfactory answer. My puzzlement comes from the fact that *modern* Latin writes/pronounces numbers in essentially decimal/positional ways. I think it was Tony Hoare (who read “Greats” at Oxford) who wondered whether the “normal” Roman numerals used a lot of straight lines because they were carved into stone!?

I’d be very interested if you get a solid explanation of how calculations were done

cliff jones


On 2019-02-20, at 20:36, herbert.bruderer at bluewin.ch<mailto:herbert.bruderer at bluewin.ch> wrote:


How did the Romans calculate?

https://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/234881-how-did-the-romans-calculate/fulltext


Hi all:

Does anyone know how the Romans calculated with the Roman numeral system?

What is the meaning of the right-most slot of the Roman hand abacus?

Do you have Roman hand abaci (original devices or replicas) in your collection?

Thank you very much for your help.

Best wishes,

Herbert Bruderer

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