2 ms·
Wikipedia says it was base 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus
by mkehrt 2y ago
Wikipedia says it was base 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoThat's interesting that it implies that they had concepts of zero and place-value number systems. I can imagine Romans complaining about people sticking with the Roman number system as they converted numbers to and from their abacus.
- Ekaros 2y agoLooking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals that abacus makes lot more sense. It was not base 10 system, but bi-quinary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-quinary_coded_decimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-quinary_coded_decimal). For larger numbers very messy number, but one must think of how V is 5, L 50 and D 500. So they did not really have place value system. Or at least logical leap from abacus to place value. Instead they had 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and summed or deducted these. Sometimes in stylistic ways.