By the way, this system of naming exponents looks a lot like Roman numerals to me. Pre-pending a name = raise to higher powers. It's a bit more ad hoc, becaus

By the way, this system of naming exponents looks a lot like Roman numerals to me. Pre-pending a name = raise to higher powers. It's a bit more ad hoc, because pre-pending a name multiplies the exponent (rather than adding, as Roman numerals do) -- making primes impossible to express. So they need the notion of a "sursolid" to express exponents (like 5 or 7) that do not factor into twos and threes. So, amazingly, he was able to create a system more ad hoc than Roman numerals.