truly interested in “pure” math, such as abstract geometry. Instead, they concentrated
on “applied math,” using mathematics and their Roman numerals for more practical
purposes, such as building roads, temples, bridges, and aqueducts; for keeping mer-
chant accounts; and for managing supplies for their armies.
Centuries after the Roman Empire fell, various cultures continued to use Roman
numerals. Even today, the symbols are still in existence; they are used on certain time-
pieces, in formal documents, and for listing dates in the form of years. For example,
just watch the end credits of your favorite movie or television program and you will
often see the movie’s copyright date represented with Roman numerals.What are the basic Roman numeralsand how are they used?
There are only seven basic Roman numerals, as seen in the following chart:Number Roman Numeral
1I
5V
10 X
50 L
100 C
500 D
1000 MThere are many rules, of course, to this method of writing numerals. For example,
although the way to write a large number like 8,000 would be “MMMMMMMM,” this is
20 very cumbersome. In order to work with such large numbers, one rule was to write a
Why were early Greek calendars such a mess?
U
nlike the Mesopotamian cultures, the early Greeks paid less attention to
astronomy and more to cosmology (they were interested in studying where
the Earth and other cosmic bodies stand in relation to the universe). Because of
this, their astronomical observations were not accurate, creating confusing cal-
endars. This also led to a major conundrum: Almost every Greek city kept time
differently. In fact, during the Greek and Hellenistic times, most dates were given
in terms of the Olympiads. This only created another time-keeping problem: If
something happened during the 10th Olympiad, it meant the event occurred
within a four-year span. Such notation creates headaches for historians, who end
up making educated guesses as to the actual dates of Greek events, important
people’s deaths and births, and other significant historical occurrences.