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

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

#61

Post by swman » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 2:48 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #15

> The numerical notation of 4 is IV in Roman numerals. Using "IIII" instead of "IV" isn't even necessarily wrong. Rome was a big empire with a widely-distributed populace that lasted for a thousand years. The usage of numerals changed over time and according to context: "While subtractive notation for 4, 40 and 400 (IV, XL and CD) has been the usual form since Roman times, additive notation to represent these numbers…

Dang that just hit me. They were around for 1 THOUSAND years. I'm an Indian-American, and the country I was born in has only been around since 1947 and America since 1776.

In terms of "empires" that were founded, its crazy how young our modern societies are compared to Rome.

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

#62

Post by zeven7 » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 2:48 AM UTC

mariotacke wrote: post #58

dhosek wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interesting. I wonder if this is related to how Germans count/pronounce numbers. 21 in your example is "einundzwanzig" in German (or "ein-und-zwanzig", "one-and-twenty")

I think in this case it’s because Hebrew is read right to left, so unrelated.

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

#63

Post by jeffxtreme » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 2:57 AM UTC

ghostly_s wrote: post #23

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.

This is mentioned in the article, but it's a small piece in a paragraph so understand why it could be missed:

"Somebody thought IV was not easily understandable because it resembled VI..." (in paragraph 2)

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

#64

Post by aragilar » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:04 AM UTC

swman wrote: post #61

kibwen wrote: post #15

> The numerical notation of 4 is IV in Roman numerals. Using "IIII" instead of "IV" isn't even necessarily wrong. Rome was a big empire with a widely-distributed populace that lasted for a thousand years. The usage of numerals changed over time and according to context: "While subtractive notation for 4, 40 and 400 (IV, XL and CD) has been the usual form since Roman times, additive notation to represent these numbers…

Dang that just hit me. They were around for 1 THOUSAND years. I'm an Indian-American, and the country I was born in has only been around since 1947 and America since 1776. In terms of "empires" that were founded, its crazy how young our modern societies are compared to Rome.

2 thousand if you also include the eastern empire.

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

#65

Post by morcus » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:07 AM UTC

swman wrote: post #61

kibwen wrote: post #15

> The numerical notation of 4 is IV in Roman numerals. Using "IIII" instead of "IV" isn't even necessarily wrong. Rome was a big empire with a widely-distributed populace that lasted for a thousand years. The usage of numerals changed over time and according to context: "While subtractive notation for 4, 40 and 400 (IV, XL and CD) has been the usual form since Roman times, additive notation to represent these numbers…

Dang that just hit me. They were around for 1 THOUSAND years. I'm an Indian-American, and the country I was born in has only been around since 1947 and America since 1776. In terms of "empires" that were founded, its crazy how young our modern societies are compared to Rome.

If you consider the so-called Byzantines to be Romans (and you should, for lots of reasons), the Roman state was at least a notable regional power all the way from the mid 300s BCE all the way up to 1204 - that's around 1500 years. And it existed for a few hundred years more on either end.

Truly boggles the mind.

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

#66

Post by vram22 » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:07 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #44

coffeebeqn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In Britain the end credits for BBC programmes would finish with the final line: © BBC MCMXCVI I can generally figure them out before the line has hit the top of the screen. Of course, it was much easier a few years later: © BBC MM or now © BBC MMXXIV

1996, 2000 and 2024.

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

#67

Post by never_inline » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:12 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…

India. was taught roman numerals upto 1000 in elementary school math, 5th grade or so. Quickly forgot.

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

#68

Post by nescioquid » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:16 AM UTC

In Latin, sometimes numbers have synonyms, like 18 (two from twenty or eight and ten). In my mind, the Roman system was very obvious. Then I learned to read a little French, and had genuine curiosity about the reasoning behind this soixante-dix-neuf character.

edit: sometimes I wonder if arithmetic arose simply from naming numbers

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

#69

Post by staplung » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:17 AM UTC

Fun fact: in Roman numerals there is no standard way to write numbers above 3999. There are basically two competing camps for how to write them. One with C's and backwards C's acting kinda like parens and one with lines over the letters.

On the other hand, they had semi-standard numerals for all sorts of odd fractions like 1⁄288 = ℈.

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

#70

Post by ummonk » Sat, Mar 16, 2024, 3:18 AM UTC

It's odd that they still use IX though, since that is indistinguishable from inverted XI (IV and VI, by contrast, are distinguishable even after rotation).