Anthology of Ideas

Before Western society was introduced to the “Arabic” — technically, the number system originated in India — numeral system, it used the Roman system which uses six symbols to represent a base 10 numeric system (repeats every 10 digits) I,V,X,L,C, and M which referred to the numbers 1,5,10,50,100,and 1000 respectively, and the placement of the symbols determined their value. If a symbol with a smaller value came before a larger, it was subtracted from the larger; if it cam after it was added, so IV meant 4 while VI meant 6.

Before Western society was introduced to the “Arabic” — technically, the number system originated in India — numeral system, it used the Roman system which uses six symbols to represent a base 10 numeric system (repeats every 10 digits) I,V,X,L,C, and M which referred to the numbers 1,5,10,50,100,and 1000 respectively, and the placement of the symbols determined their value. If a symbol with a smaller value came before a larger, it was subtracted from the larger; if it cam after it was added, so IV meant 4 while VI meant 6.