A use for Roman numerals ...

You would not think that in the 21st century the old Roman numeral sytem, which is incredibly clunky and inefficient compared with arabic numbers, would have any real use outside of history and archaeology.

Guess agan.

I was using an online payment system today which is run on behalf of one of the organisations with I have regular dealings. Despite being one of the less user-friendly computer systems I deal with, it is still massively more convenient than making a round trip of at least an hour and a half to visit the organisation in person and much quicker than posting a cheque.

But boy is it user-unfriendly at times.

This morning I had to decide on a "nickname" for something. I wanted to include a date in the nickname so I could identify the most recent one.

No deal - the system did not accept numbers.

Then my wife said "Why not try using Roman numerals?" And it worked.

Extraordinary irony that a modern internet-based system will accept an inefficient numbering system which is well over 2,000 years old and has been obsolete for more than a thousand of them, but not the one we use in everyday life.

Comments

Jim said…
Roman numerals are awesome, they just look so much better in their place, I mean ok MCMXCIX would be a rather clunky way to write 1999, but in their place they are great.

I mean roman numerals look better on say clocks, (though they do tend to use IIII rather than the more appropriate IV, not sure why but i suppose its to try and balance the VIII of the 8.

Another use is of course of the monarch. Elizabeth 2nd does not look nearly as good as Elizabeth II, even later on with George VI, and Henry VIII, they just look better.
4:56 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
I'll agree with you again, Jim - I would find roman numerals incredibly difficult to use in my job manipulating numbers, but they do indeed look better on clocks, watches, and after the name of the Monarch.

And although putting them into a date is a bit of a pain, better a roman numeral date the system will accept than an arabic number it won't take.
1:24 am
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