Page 26 - SYTYGIB: Ancient Rome

education
Some people simply don,t get,, numbers. In school they,re WONDERFUL with words, PERFECT with pictures and SUPERB with sounds.
What is X plus X?
Err . . . L?
But when faced with numbers in class, they scream, shout “wibble- wibble-PaNcAkE!” and run into the playground with their jumper pulled over their head.
Perhaps you’re one of those people? But if you think you’ve got it bad, imagine trying to add, subtract and
do – gasp – lOnG dIvIsIoN if numbers were letters!
That’s one of the things Roman kids had to get their ancient brainboxes round in school.
Unlike the Arabic numbers we use today (1, 2, 3 etc. You know the drill), Roman numerals were represented by letters (also known as symbols). Now for the tricky bit:
When a symbol appears after a larger (or equal) symbol, you add them together. But if the symbol appears before a larger symbol, it is subtracted.
So, for 3 you would write III; for 7 you would write VII; for 14 you would write XIV (that’s 10 plus 5 minus 1 – do keep up . . . and stop picking your nose at the back of the class).
If you wanted to write 78 you’d have to put down LXXVIII! And so on.
Once you get into the rEaLlY BiG numbers, you’re practically writing a bOoK! Here are some Roman numerals – can you work out what numbers they represent?
A: CXI B: MCCXXXIV C: MMMCMLXXVIII
22
Answers:
A: 111 B: 1234 C: 3978
,,