> The interesting thing is that the non-Arabic bits of Europe did not
> drop Roman numerals like a stone when Arabic numerals became known.
> It took a very long time for their use to spread
> Triumph of oral culture over
> mathematical convenience, perhaps.
> Julia Barrow
Although it is difficult for us to even imagine it, part of the
problem was also conceptual. The algorithms that we take so much for
granted, like long multiplication and division, were the subject of
treatises, I believe, around the 13th century. In their present
form, they took a long time to evolve. It takes time to learn how to
use new symbol systems. Even in these speeded up times of
technological progress, computers were invented in the '40s (based on
a binary system of symbols), yet it took quite a while for Medieval
Religion to evolve from there. And as Julia states, the use of
numbers is various. Some traditional uses of Roman numerals were,
and still are, retained, just as rotuli continued to be produced for
symbolically significant texts long after the codex was the norm.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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