Roman Numerals
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Like many other ancient numeral systems, Roman numerals are based on the additive principle: a number is written by concatenating individual symbols, each representing a fixed value, and the value of the resulting numeral phrase is the sum of the individual values of each letter. The modern style of Roman numerals uses only seven letters from the Latin alphabet as symbols: I meaning 1, V meaning 5, X meaning 10, L meaning 50, C meaning 100, D meaning 500, and M meaning 1000. For example, the Roman numeral XXVII represents the number 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 = 27. When a smaller numeral symbol precedes a larger one, subtraction is implied; for example, the notation IV represents 5 − 1 = 4 and IX represents 10 − 1 = 9
The use of Roman numerals continued long after the decline of the Roman Empire. From the 14th century on, Roman numerals began to be replaced by the positional Hindu–Arabic numeral system; however, this process was gradual, and the use of Roman numerals has persisted in some contexts, such as on clock faces. For instance, on the clock of Big Ben (designed in 1852), the hours from 1 to 12 are written as:
Other common uses include year numbers on monuments and buildings and copyright dates on the title screens of films and television programmes. MCM signifies 1000 + 1000 − 100 = 1900, so 1912 is written MCMXII. For the years of the 21st century, MM indicates 2000, so 2026 (the current year) is written MMXXVI.
Roman Numerals
- 2006-09-05T00:00:00.000000Z
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