Roman Numeral Challenge

[geodave]

The whole IX=9 stuff was added in the 19th century -- prior to that you never put them in reverse order at all.

I thought that movie copyrights typically said "MCMLXXXIV" for 1984. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.

Anyway: MMMDCCCLXXVI

[IceyLava108]

The whole IX=9 stuff was added in the 19th century -- prior to that you never put them in reverse order at all.

I thought that movie copyrights typically said "MCMLXXXIV" for 1984. Maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.

Anyway: MMMDCCCLXXVI

3,876

[Hornlitz]

MDCLXVI

(this is actually the lowest number you can have that includes all the letters )

[Lessinath]

Dave is right. Originally they were not put in reverse order at all.

MMMDCCCCLXXXVIII

[BitBuster]

Ok, I'm confused...IceyLava seemed to imply that you COULD say IX, XL, etc...just not with the thousands. But then Dave said that the whole "small before large" thing was a 19th century thing...so which is it?

[geodave]

I'm right, of course!

Prior to about 1850, you always put them in the "bigger to smaller" order: MDCLXVI

Then, somebody decided that it would be okay to "shortcut" the system by allowing letters that stood for "1"s in any place to be put to the left of the next two highest numbers, to denote "4" or "9". So, C, X, and I can do this:

IV = 4

IX = 9

XL = 40

XC = 90

CD = 400

CM = 900

Now, granted, I've never seen anyone use CD, but I am SURE I've seen MCM to mean 1900 in a year.

Also, you'll notice that on many clocks they use IX but they don't use IV. They use IIII instead. This might just be aesthetic, or it might be that the "4" thing came later than the "9" thing. [i also noticed that clocks have 4 numbers with just Is, 4 numbers with Vs and 4 numbers with Xs.]

[BitBuster]

I would never trust a clock that had four I's. Just saying.

[Green Kitten]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMI

Kind of a pointless topic, huh?

[IceyLava108]

MDCLXVI

(this is actually the lowest number you can have that includes all the letters )

1,666

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMI

Kind of a pointless topic, huh?

Not a valid numeral: you cannot have more than three of the same numeral in a row.

Dave is right. Originally they were not put in reverse order at all.

MMMDCCCCLXXXVIII

This isn't valid either, as you have four C's in a row.

However, I will change it to MMMDCCCLXXXVIII...

3,888

[BitBuster]

Not a valid numeral: you cannot have more than three of the same numeral in a row.

Then how do you express the number 4, if you can't have four in a row and you can't do the lower-before-higher trick?

::Scratches head::