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Concept
Roman numerals
Summary
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, each letter with a fixed integer value. Modern style uses only these seven:
The use of Roman numerals continued long after the decline of the Roman Empire. From the 14th century on, Roman numerals began to be replaced by Arabic numerals; however, this process was gradual, and the use of Roman numerals persists in some applications to this day.
One place they are often seen is on clock faces. For instance, on the clock of Big Ben (designed in 1852), the hours from 1 to 12 are written as:
The notations and can be read as "one less than five" (4) and "one less than ten" (9), although there is a tradition favouring representation of "4" as "" on Roman numeral clocks.
Other common uses include year numbers on monuments and buildings and copyright dates on the title screens of movies and television programs. , signifying "a thousand, and a hundred less than another thousand", means 1900, so 1912 is written . For the years of the current (21st) century, indicates 2000. The current year is ().
Roman numerals use different symbols for each power of ten and no zero symbol, in contrast with the place value notation of Arabic numerals (in which place-keeping zeros enable the same digit to represent different powers of ten).
This allows some flexibility in notation, and there has never been an official or universally accepted standard for Roman numerals. Usage varied greatly in ancient Rome and became thoroughly chaotic in medieval times. Even the post-renaissance restoration of a largely "classical" notation has failed to produce total consistency: variant forms are even defended by some modern writers as offering improved "flexibility". On the other hand, especially where a Roman numeral is considered a legally binding expression of a number, as in U.S.
Official source
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