On Sat, 22 Sep 2001 18:46:36 EDT, DougEwell2@cs.com wrote:
>>> I would be fascinated to see some sort of evidence that addition and
>>> subtraction is easier in Roman numerals than in Hindu-Arabic ("European")
>>> numerals.
>>
>> I + I = II
>> X + X = XX
>> X + X + X = XXX
>> C + X = CX
>> CX - X = C
>
>For these carefully chosen examples, sure, but what about:
>
>III + IX = XII
>XXIV + XXVII = LI
>C - I = XCIX
The subtractive form of roman numerals was used for stone carving.
The normal form was to use only MCXI and arithmetic was done like an abacus.
It took less learning to do arithmetic since it was counting beads in decimal notation.
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