Talk:Roman numerals

Tables

It is recommended to use wikitext (wikitables) with MediaWiki instead of HTML (HTML tables). Wikitext is simpler and needs much less characters (much less verbose.) For example, the HTML table:

<table>
<tr align="right"><td>'''I'''</td><td>   1</td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td>'''V'''</td><td>   5</td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td>'''X'''</td><td>  10</td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td>'''L'''</td><td>  50</td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td>'''C'''</td><td> 100</td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td>'''D'''</td><td> 500</td></tr>
<tr align="right"><td>'''M'''</td><td>1000</td></tr>
</table>

giving

I	1
V	5
X	10
L	50
C	100
D	500
M	1000

becomes (where I show 2 ways of entering the rows cells)

:{| style="text-align:right;"
!
!
|-
| '''I''' 
| 1
|-
| '''V''' 
| 5
|-
| '''X''' 
| 10
|-
| '''L''' 
| 50
|-
| '''C''' || 100
|-
| '''D''' || 500
|-
| '''M''' || 1000
|-
|}

giving

I	1
V	5
X	10
L	50
C	100
D	500
M	1000

I also wrapped examples of the tables in <pre></pre> to display the code. — Daniel Forgues 07:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the following tables are even necessary, but I don't want to hold up designating a stable version. Alonso del Arte (talk) 22:32, 24 March 2018 (EDT)

Uppercase roman numerals (Unicode, TeX) Character Unicode Result TeX Result Ⅰ Ⅰ Ⅰ   Ⅱ Ⅱ Ⅱ   Ⅲ Ⅲ Ⅲ   Ⅳ Ⅳ Ⅳ   Ⅴ Ⅴ Ⅴ   Ⅵ Ⅵ Ⅵ   Ⅶ Ⅶ Ⅶ   Ⅷ Ⅷ Ⅷ   Ⅸ Ⅸ Ⅸ   Ⅹ Ⅹ Ⅹ   Ⅺ Ⅺ Ⅺ   Ⅻ Ⅻ Ⅻ   Ⅼ Ⅼ Ⅼ   Ⅽ Ⅽ Ⅽ   Ⅾ Ⅾ Ⅾ   Ⅿ Ⅿ Ⅿ   ↀ ↀ ↀ   ↁ ↁ ↁ   ↂ ↂ ↂ   Ↄ Ↄ Ↄ

Lowercase roman numerals (Unicode, TeX) Character Unicode Result TeX Result ⅰ ⅰ ⅰ   ⅱ ⅱ ⅱ   ⅲ ⅲ ⅲ   ⅳ ⅳ ⅳ   ⅴ ⅴ ⅴ   ⅵ ⅵ ⅵ   ⅶ ⅶ ⅶ   ⅷ ⅷ ⅷ   ⅸ ⅸ ⅸ   ⅹ ⅹ ⅹ   ⅺ ⅺ ⅺ   ⅻ ⅻ ⅻ   ⅼ ⅼ ⅼ   ⅽ ⅽ ⅽ   ⅾ ⅾ ⅾ   ⅿ ⅿ ⅿ

3999

Even in the very early days of Roman numerals large numbers could be represented. An inscription in honor of the 260 BC victory of C·DVLIVS (Gaius Dulius) contains a number over two million (Warmington v. 4, pp. 130-131 says, "This final total was of course much larger than represented by such figures (2,100,000) as survive in the inscription.") as the value in silver coins of the Roman booty taken from Carthage. The number is recorded as 21 (or more) "100,000" numerals.

Here's a picture of the artifact itself (the Columna Rostrata at the Capitoline Museum): [1]. The 100,000 symbols are at the bottom.

These are even in Unicode: U+2188, U+2187, U+2182, U+2181, U+2180. Unicode also has , U+2186, "Roman numeral fifty early form", but I haven't seen that one in inscriptions.

— Charles R Greathouse IV 06:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, that inscription is in Ifrah's book, but he goes farther in reconstructing the rest of the inscription. In any case, Ifrah's point is that it is rather impractical to have to repeat a numeral so many times but the Romans came up with too many different systems for dealing with this limitation.

The consequence for the OEIS is that perhaps sequences dealing with Roman numerals should observe a limit of 3999 or 4999. If someone submitted "pandigital Roman numerals as written by Lt. Florianus at the Battle of Athens," that would have to be rejected. Especially if later we learned that later on Florian preferred a different method for writing numbers beyond 3999. Alonso del Arte 17:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Warmington of course gives the whole inscription, translation, and several notes -- I didn't reproduce them here as they did not seem germane.

The point is just that the Romans have, since their early days, had ways to write large numbers.

Charles R Greathouse IV 00:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

And Ifrah's book devotes a whole chapter to those different ways. Here I think it is sufficient to just give an idea why sequences dealing with Roman numerals in the OEIS tend to be finite, even when their analogous place value based sequences are infinite (e.g., pandigital numbers).

I wasn't able to look for Warmington's book in any library. Everyone here is worrying about the coming snowstorm. Alonso del Arte 02:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)