Hatrack River Forum: Roman numerals

This is topic Roman numerals in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :

My daughter had an assignment wherein she had to convert a bunch of numbers to Roman numerals. The last question was "the number of square feet in an acre" - which we discovered (Thank you Google!) was 43,560. But how to put that into Roman numerals? Once again I turned to Google and learned that "X" with a line over or under it is 10,000, and "L" with a line over or under it is 50,000.

SO

It looks like it's
XLMMMDLX (The bolded letters are either over or underscored.)

How did I ever get homework done without Google?

Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :

My mom says that there's these things called "encyclopedias" in buildings called "libraries".

Pft. Next she'll be telling me that there was a a time when people actually had to do math without a calculator.

[Wink]

--j_k

Posted by maui babe (Member # 1894) on :

Well, I've never had to do math without a calculator for sure, but I remember my dad giving my older sister his old slide rule. I remember she was a little miffed, because she really wanted a calculator.

Posted by Carrie (Member # 394) on :

Wow, I had to beg my dad for his old slide rule.

Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :

Wow! Slide rules rock!!!!

[Hail]

Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :

My 3-year-old daughter calls them "numer romanals." It's extremely cute. [Smile]

Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :

Yes. Slide rules do rock.

I would pay to see a slide-rule race.

Hobbes [Smile]

[ October 22, 2004, 11:59 PM: Message edited by: Hobbes ]

Posted by ReikoDemosthenes (Member # 6218) on :

oddly enough, I have to thank the Hardy Boys for my knowledge of roman numerals...all the chapters were numbered that way so I had a reason to learn them

Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :

Hey, I'm not old, and I remember a time when calculators were banned from the classroom. That lasted till about high school, when suddenly a calculator became compulsory...

Go figure.

Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :

I remember that too DH...

The Butlerian Jihad is almost apon us!

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

quote:
Go figure.

Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :

No one has told poor Maui Babe if her number is correct. I think you are all hiding your lack of Roman numeral writing knowledge behind a "back in my day" discussion of calculators.

*quickly hides lack of Roman numeral knowledge behind accusation of others' lack of Roman numeral knowledge*

Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :

Looking things up in hard text take a lot of additional time. Time to get to the place where they store them, time to find the volume you want, time to flip through the index, time to curse inwardly when you realize it is the wrong reference, time to find another volume (sometimes at another site, in which you add in additional time to fall over as you are crossing the street, time to call the ambulance, etc).

Information searches are insanely easier with the net, so long as one develops a mental filter for reliable sources.

Before the net, you could not:
- easily map out a roadtrip, including hotels and information about construction areas
- read a journal article if that issue was at the binders' or already checked out
- quickly access information from the newstands of anywhere in the developed world (and some undeveloped areas)
- find someone else who has a brain tumor exactly of the same type and the same place as yours
- check out a professional's credentials online

and so on and so on.

I remember (old fogey hat nonchalantly cocked over one eye) when you had to either get all cash you would need for the weekend by Friday or have an arrangement with a local grocery store to cash your checks. Otherwise, the weekend was severly limited.

I also remember when we typed out school reports, whited out the typos, typed over the whiteout, and then photocopied the result so your professor couldn't see all the errors. And the first time I realized you could move around whole paragraphs in your paper without retyping the whole thing ... what a rush.

Wow. Very different world.

Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :

We are old, Sara, old indeed!

Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :

quote:
The Butlerian Jihad is almost apon us!

While I did not roll on the floor, I laughed so explosively that it frightened my kids. Telp [Kiss]

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

I have to admit that I had to look that up to get the joke. It almost made me want to read the book.

Good one though. If I were more well-read, I would've gotten it.

Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :

Oh, Bob, you really should. I used to wonder what all the hype was about, but it really is that good.

I dug this up to note that my son just said "Mommy, look, a book-computer!" He had used two books to make a laptop-shaped imaginary computer. The two books happen to be from the "Harvard Classics"- Homer, and Marlowe/Shakespeare. [Angst]

Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :

Hey! I thought we burned all those! Turn 'em over. C'mon now, don't make us come and get 'em.