Wednesday, 16 May 2012

Roman numerals

Roman Numerals
Values
You can keep the values in your mind as follows.
>V is the upper half of X
>C stands for centum=100, known from centimetre=cm
>L is the lower half of C, if you have some imagination
>M stands for mille=1000, known from millimetre=mm
>D is the right half of (I), an old writing of 1000
History
The roman numerals were not fixed until the first century but the exact year that roman numerals were discovered is unknown. Roman Numerals were meant to have originated from tally sticks that were used by the Dalmatian and Italian Shepherds.
Symbols
 The symbols are technically the letters from the alphabet there is X V I C L and so on, but ‘I’ cannot go 4 times in one number. This is an example.

Ancient Greek Number system

Greek Numerals

Greek Numeral

The Greek
number system
is similar to the
Egyptian number system because the numerals were repeated when needed and the system was non positional, though it was a bit more sophisticated.  The Greek system on enumeration was alphabetical and required more than 27different symbols.


The thousands, 1000 to 9000, were represented by placing an apostrophe before a unit.

Babylonian Number System

Babylonian number system

      
                          
                History
The Babylonian number system started more than 500 years ago in Mesopotamia. It is one of the oldest number systems. They had one of the most advanced number systems. It had a base of sixty unlike our system which has a base of 10.

Symbols

The Babylonians did not technically have a digit for, or a concept of, the number zero. Although they understood the idea of nothingness, it was not seen as a number—merely the lack of a number.

Egyptian Number System

Egyptian Number System

Symbols 

Egyptian numerals take place over thousands of years and even today we still use them.


History
The history is very significant about the Egyptians, they would sometimes use their numbers and hieroglyphics to communicate two thousand years ago. In a lot of the pyramids you can find a lot of ancient Egyptian numerals.