On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV • Hacker News Board

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#21

Post by coffeebeqn » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 12:56 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #10

I wonder how much Roman numerals are even taught any longer. Maybe 5 years ago now I was traveling with a friend who went to a solid US suburban high school outside of a major city. Younger than me but certainly not young. And she asked me what a date written in Roman numerals was in the numbering system we normally use. I was somewhat floored. Thinking about it though. It sort of is cultural/historical trivia. How m…

I was “taught” them in history class I think but I can hardly make sense of anything beyond 100

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#22

Post by ghostly_s » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 12:59 AM UTC

dbheree wrote: post #18

[flagged]

This sounds like conspiracy theory to me.

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#23

Post by ghostly_s » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:04 AM UTC

IMHO there's an obvious reason not mentioned: due to their position on the dial and convention IV and VI would typically be depicted upside down, increasing the likelihood of confusing them—particularly with a semi-literate populace.

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#24

Post by gjsman-1000 » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:04 AM UTC

dbheree wrote: post #18

[flagged]

I would like a citation on that. The only people reading books with abbreviations at the time would have academics, simply because we didn’t have the printing press yet and books were scarce. Scarce enough that there would be almost nowhere needing an abbreviation in the first place.

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#25

Post by labster » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:06 AM UTC

ghostly_s wrote: post #22

dbheree wrote: post #18

[flagged]

This sounds like conspiracy theory to me.

It’s not a conspiracy, it’s just that we lost a lot of knowledge when the Mud Flood destroyed the Tartarian Empire. That’s why we don’t know how to build giant mechanical public clocks any more, and everything is digital clocks now.

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#26

Post by ghostly_s » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:09 AM UTC

nvader wrote: post #9

The reason that I heard was that it was easy to mass-engrave a single plate: VIIIIX For each clock, you make 4 of these, and split each block into numbers the following way: V IIII I X VI III IX (mirror the IX for 11) VII II IX VIII IIX This lets you mass produce watch numbers with a minimum of wasted material.

I think most clocks and watches would have the numerals engraved directly into the face, and if they were separate pieces as on a tower clock they would be either be engraved by hand or with a pantograph, but probably not engraved at all but cut out from a sheet. In any case I don't see how your method creates any meaningful economies of scale — if anything four 'I's requires _more_ material than an 'IV.'

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#27

Post by qprofyeh » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:10 AM UTC

nvader wrote: post #9

The reason that I heard was that it was easy to mass-engrave a single plate: VIIIIX For each clock, you make 4 of these, and split each block into numbers the following way: V IIII I X VI III IX (mirror the IX for 11) VII II IX VIII IIX This lets you mass produce watch numbers with a minimum of wasted material.

Brilliant if true!

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#28

Post by simondotau » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:11 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #12

It's unclear to me when the (now standard) subtractive form became the standard; there are examples in Roman times of e.g. IIX for 8, and VIIII for 9, both of which would be non-standard today.

Non-standard, but parses unambiguously.

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#29

Post by userbinator » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:17 AM UTC

ghostly_s wrote: post #22

dbheree wrote: post #18

[flagged]

This sounds like conspiracy theory to me.

Actually sounds more like LLM output to me. (The first sentence, in particular, and some stylistic choices in the following ones.)

Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV

#30

Post by technothrasher » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 1:19 AM UTC

I've always thought the "well balanced and looks better" was the simplest and most likely of the theories out there on why the IIII is used. Dials that use IV just look funny to me, but perhaps that's simply because they're rare.