I found something very interesting about roman numerals. If you had to set up a physical score table for a game (say basketball), in base 10 you would need 10*3

I found something very interesting about roman numerals. If you had to set up a physical score table for a game (say basketball), in base 10 you would need 10*3 digits (10 digits for each position in a 3 digit number). If you try other bases, you'll find 3 is the cheapest (you'll only need 19 digits to show all numbers from 0 to 999). But with roman numerals, you only need 16 (15 plus one for zero). It is the most economical base by far. You would need I (3), V (1), X (4), L (1), C (4), D (1), M (1), and N for nihil.