Roman Numerals

[Tekla]

How do you write 'Zero' in Roman numerals ?

[Quizmonster]

You don't, because they didn't. The concept of 'zero' did not exist at that time.

[Tekla]

Was that the case for negatve numbers as well ?

[Ethel]

As I understand it, Romans did have a concept of zero, and used the word 'nullae' (nothing).

There are scholarly reports that claim the Ancient Romans used the letter N to represent zero.

Negative numbers is an interesting point. Sorry I don't have the answer.

[Haggisdj]

From memory I'm don't think the Romans were too hot on maths. I think that came from the Arabs, along with the concept of zero (0).

[jake-the-peg]

I think most culturea had a concept of zero.

"You have 2 bear skins I have none."

The revolution was the concept that 0 could be an actula number that you could do arithmetic with.

Particularly by using it in the way we do now in the decimal system you could represent an infinite number of values.

This was an Indian revolution about the year 500 that we got from the arabs.

Negative numbers? India again about 200 years later started using them to represent debts.

Irrational numbers? India! 800 BC (interestingly long before negatives)

Complex numbers? Italy! thankfully Europe had caught up but it had taken a thousand years

What have the Romans done for us? Not maths that's for sure!

[Quizmonster]

Click here and scroll down to the section headed 'Zero'. There you will see it claimed that the only recorded use of 'N' for 'nullae/zero' occurred in England in the 8th century, used by the Venerable Bede or one of his monks. This is long after the Roman Era, even though Latin was still a lingua franca in religious and other educated circles.

[Octavius]

The big differences between Roman and Arabic numerals (the ones we use today) are that Romans didn't have a symbol for zero because there is no need for zero.

For evidence of this, look at the number 10 on a watch or clock face that has roman numerals.

[Peter Pedant]

There is a confusion in this thread between the concept of nothing which the Romans had, nil nihil and nullus springs instantly to mind

and the symbol for zero 0 which they didnt



This is a big idea in computability for reasons I am only just beginning to understand....


PP

[the 5niper]

My maths teacher told us it was pythagarus (he ruled) in ancient greece