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Yes, the Romans really were awesome engineers. They were even more awesome when you realize that they were completely hamstrung by the utterly idiotic Roman nu
by Grishnakh 11y ago
Yes, the Romans really were awesome engineers. They were even more awesome when you realize that they were completely hamstrung by the utterly idiotic Roman numeral system! Can you imagine doing complex calculations in that?
- restalis 11y agoI guess they also might had some math tricks that made it easy, tricks that you may now count as another "art" lost. But then would you try to rediscover some art about how some people dealt with something imperfect (because they had to) or you would rather look for something better that doesn't require clever tricks in the first place? Now I come to think that (at least) some loses present opportunity value in themselves!
- pacofvf 11y agoI'm pretty sure Roman Numerals arithmetic algorithms weren't lost, I looking for the source but in the meanwhile here's some of them: http://turner.faculty.swau.edu/mathematics/materialslibrary/roman/ http://turner.faculty.swau.edu/mathematics/materialslibrary/...