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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 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…
The most important use for teaching Roman numerals that I see is learning that bad abstractions (here: a number system) can be made to work, but they still suck. The solution is to find better abstractions. Maybe it inspires curiosity in how (well) modern maths works.
The only really bad thing about Roman numerals is non-positionality, and it kinda follows naturally from them being merely transcriptions of the states of the 5+2-beads abacus that was popular back then. If only the norm back then were the 10-beads abacus... alas, the history is what it is.
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.
Doesn’t that also work for IVIIIX?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
the point is that you can have a single die that cuts XVIIIII, and use it iv times and get what you need for I II III IIII V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII this is not for modern manufacturing of millions, it's for one at a time clockmaking in a little shop, for which it's a pretty efficient way to accomplish the task and doesn't require keeping an inventory
Wouldn't that also work with IXIVIII on the die? How do you print IX with yours? An improvement would be IXIVIII actually, then all combinations can be located in that string.
The third image they show uses IV.
That said, I always go with Arabic numerals, so it's a moot point for me, practically speaking.
I had heard that IV might be considered sacrilegious, as the god Jupiter would have once been spelled IVPPITER, as I was used for modern J and V for modern U.
There is a similar thing with Hebrew numerals¹ where 15 and 16 are usually written as תו and תז to avoid what would otherwise be forms of the name of God. ⸻ 1. The Hebrew numeral system, like the Greek numeral system is an almost-decimal system in that different letters are used for each of the different values, but the letters change by place value as well as by their individual value, so, e.g., 21 is written כא whe…
I had heard that IV might be considered sacrilegious, as the god Jupiter would have once been spelled IVPPITER, as I was used for modern J and V for modern U.
There is a similar thing with Hebrew numerals¹ where 15 and 16 are usually written as תו and תז to avoid what would otherwise be forms of the name of God. ⸻ 1. The Hebrew numeral system, like the Greek numeral system is an almost-decimal system in that different letters are used for each of the different values, but the letters change by place value as well as by their individual value, so, e.g., 21 is written כא whe…
https://web.archive.org/web/20201115002205/https://www.washi...
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.