Date: November 19th, 2019 11:17 PM
Author: Boyish hideous parlour
Also, they didn’t do math in their heads
Date: 10/19/96 at 22:11:51
From: Doctor Mason
Subject: Re: Roman Contribution to Math
The Romans were indeed very good mathematicians. However, they tended
to study only what is now called "applied math." They wanted to be
able to use their knowledge to build the wonderful roads and bridges
you mentioned.
The Roman calculations were done on a board with grooves and holes.
I've tried to draw the board below, and indicate the place values each
groove and hole had.
-- -- -- --
| | | | | | | |
| | -- | | -- | | -- | |
| || | | || | | || || |
| | -- | | -- | | -- | |
| | | | | | | |
-- -- -- --
M D C L X V I
On this board, they would place pebbles, "calculi" in Latin. This
brings us to one of the Roman contributions to math: the words
"calculate", and "calculus" both come from this origin. They would
place one pebble in the appropriate place for each letter in their
numeral. Other pebbles could be added to them representing another
addend. The pebbles would have to be rearranged so no more than 4
were in a groove, or no more than 1 in a hole. They manipulated the
pebbles to do all their calculations.
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57564.html
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4385156&forum_id=2).#39143196)