Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2022 November 11
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November 11
[edit]Roman numerals
[edit]Is there a way to express numbers in Roman numerals after 3,999,999? Finnish Wikipedia says that vinculum is used below the "letter" to make numerals from 4,000,000 to 3,999,999,999. But English Wikipedia says nothing about that. Is there really an method to this? --40bus (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
- According to this source, there were no standard ways of expressing numbers higher than 1,000,000 in Roman numerals. --Lambiam 18:36, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
- I thought that vinculum below was a standard, and wanted to know how to make numbers from 4,000,000,000 to 3,999,999,999,999.--40bus (talk) 21:41, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
- First, I believe the passage Lambiam cites is intending to refer to amounts representable as a single character with vinculum. Second, as it says at Roman numeral#Large numbers, none of the notations devised to extend the range of Roman numerals was ever standardized, so I think 40bus is asking for something that doesn't exist. I can't cite my source, but I remember seeing it stated somewhere that the largest number known to have been expressed in ancient times in Roman numerals was 2,300,000 -- represented not using a vinculum but as ↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈ. --174.89.144.126 (talk) 03:25, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
- No wonder their science didn't advance as much as users of Hindu-Arabic or Greek numerals, their numbers sucked! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:32, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
- The ancient Greek numeral system was not much simpler. --Lambiam 16:59, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
- No wonder their science didn't advance as much as users of Hindu-Arabic or Greek numerals, their numbers sucked! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:32, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
- First, I believe the passage Lambiam cites is intending to refer to amounts representable as a single character with vinculum. Second, as it says at Roman numeral#Large numbers, none of the notations devised to extend the range of Roman numerals was ever standardized, so I think 40bus is asking for something that doesn't exist. I can't cite my source, but I remember seeing it stated somewhere that the largest number known to have been expressed in ancient times in Roman numerals was 2,300,000 -- represented not using a vinculum but as ↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈↈ. --174.89.144.126 (talk) 03:25, 12 November 2022 (UTC)