Roman numerals (was: Re: Discouraging...)
From Matthew Thomas <mpt...@spamfree.land>
· alt.ascii-art
· 2 Oct 1998 00:00 · View full thread
· report
Johan de Koning wrote: > > [Nate / DAC wrote:] >... > > (C) MCMLXXXXVIII > > > > You're supposed to use roman numerals at the end, everyone knows > > that! :-) > > Hmm, BBC uses MCMXCVIII. > Also MXMVIII has been proposed. > But than of course I'd rather use MVMIII. Erhm, the rule for Roman numerals goes thusly: when putting a smaller unit before a larger one, you are only allowed to use the next unit down, and not one smaller than that. Roman value Arabic left For example: 1999. - 1999 To start, we do the 1000: M 999 We're left with 999. Are we allowed to do IM? No, because I isn't the next unit down from M -- C is. So we add 900, CM. MCM 99 Ok, 99 to go. Are we allowed to do IC? No, because I isn't the next unit down from C -- X is. So we add 90, XC. MCMXC 9 Finally, 9 to go: add IX. MCMXCIX 0 Finished. I'm sure Martin Atkins could come up with some super tool for converting from Arabic to Roman and back again ... then again, it's probably built in to emacs somewhere (everything usually is). > On many US TV series they do use 1998. > Probably because the viewers wouldn't understand. I think that says a lot about US TV viewers, myself. > But then again, the viewers couldn't care less, > so it must be a legal thing. A legal thing? Why? -- .._o Matthew Thomas (mpt26 @ student . canterbury . ac . nz) ..://\/ http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/~mpt26/ (Site for sore eyes) ..:_/\ Read my column in NewsRoom (http://www.newsroom.co.nz/) ..:/ Those damn succubi!
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,e7b8d2d3227f2ad7 X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public From: Matthew Thomas <mpt...@spamfree.land> Subject: Roman numerals (was: Re: Discouraging...) Date: 1998/10/02 Message-ID: <361...@spamfree.land>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 396973659 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <361...@sympatico.ca> <199...@ng-fb1.aol.com> <907...@mnementh.southern.co.nz> <361...@lunatech.com> <Pin...@onyx.southwind.net> <361...@news.consunet.nl> X-Accept-Language: en Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: University of Canterbury (opinions expressed are my own) Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
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