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by ahartmetz
830 days ago
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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. |
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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.