There are those who say that it's bad form to subtract anything but the next lower "denomination" from a given symbol, i.e., XL, 40 plus IX, 9, gives 49. But you can't do VL for 45 or IL for
I think XC works for 90, but not IC for 99 or VC for 95.
But I'm pretty sure that that's mostly a "school of thought", as opposed to a hard-and-fast rule.
BTW, I know what 272 and 277 are, but am afraid to guess on any of the others, except that 273 looks like a holder of some kind for something round. Maybe a bipod for a boresight scope or something.
Cheers! Rich
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J
Jeff Wisnia
I've always wanted to see a step by step example of how a long division problem with a couple of "not too easy" numbers is solved in the Roman numeral system. Can someone show me/us one?
The ancient Hebrew numeral system is even simpler as only addition is needed to determine the full value, there's no subtraction of lower denominations located to the left of higher ones. If interested, see:
formatting link
Jeff
R
R.H.
Correct, it's a sliding window lock
I don't think it's a sprayer
It's not a shutter, but it is part of a camera.
Nope
R
R.H.
Correct
Nope
This one belongs to someone else, neither he nor I know exactly what it's for, so I'm not sure if this is correct.
Not for a furnace
Don't know if this is for furniture assembly, but you have the right general idea.
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R.H.
The tip of the bolt is actually a little bit convex, and the bolt is not very long so I don't think it's a nutcracker.
R
R.H.
Could be
Yes, tee nut is the answer that I was looking for here.
R
R.H.
Close but not correct.
Not sure here...
Possibly, not sure about this one either.
Correct.
R
R.H.
Don't know, I'm hoping someone will verify this for us with a good link.
Nope
Camera aperture is correct.
Yes.
R
R.H.
Both of these are correct.
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R.H.
Correct
I looked on the web and couldn't find one like it, still not sure.
Nope
Both correct.
Don't know...
G
Gary Dyrkacz
Yep. for sure. I used to use one of these years ago for pistriping lucite sght gauges with lacquer paint. .
Gary Dyrkacz snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net Radio Control Aircraft/Paintball Physics/Paintball for 40+
formatting link
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R.H.
I don't think that there is three parts to this one, but it's something similar for fastening.
R
R.H.
Nope
R
R.H.
Correct
Still awaiting good links to verify these two
All correct.
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R.H.
Yes, for a window.
As stated previously, still researching these two.
Nope
These last two are correct.
F
Fly-by-Night CC
Oooops. You, of course, are right. My brain was telling me the L was 5 for some reason...
R
Robert Bonomi
*First* you figure out how to do multiplication. (note: multiplying by *five* or *ten* is easy -- all you do is 'change the letters'; multiplying by anything else is *messy*. e.g., what's "IV * XL"?)
Division is done by 'multiply and subtract'. and 'summing' the various multiplicands that you end up using..
Note: some of this stuff was *easier* with 'early Roman' numbering -- which did *not* have the concept of the 'prefixed' symbol for a 'negative'. The _position_ of a symbol simply *DID*NOT*MATTER*. IIIXVLCC meant exactly the same thing as CCLXVII. this made for "simplified" addition -- you could just concatenate the two numbers. Or, if feeling fancy, sort the symbols by 'magnitude', and replace 'excess' occurrences of any particular symbol with a single occurrence of a larger-magnitude symbol. repeat until no further reductions were possible. Example:
Division is _relatively_ straightforward in 'early' numbering. It is fairly simple to find the largest 'power of ten' (or 5 times a power of 10) of the divisor that is smaller than the dividend. This is, after all, just a 'shift the characters', operation. So, you subtract that value. and repeat as needed. Note: you'll never have to subtract the same value more than 4 times, so the process is _not_ all that onerous.
With "late" Roman numerals, I strongly suspect that division was accomplished by first 're-writing' in 'old style', doing the division, and 'reducing' the result.
R
R.H.
Correct.
Do you know of a web site that could verify this one?
Here is some background on this item, as stated in the email from the owner:
"Found in my late Father-in-laws' estate. He had been an engineer at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in Hartford, but this was from his personal shop. He was a tinkerer extraordinaire.
Seems to be an oiler or something, with the small rolling notched wheel dispensing whatever was in the vial (looks like a striking wheel from a Zippo, but not used that way here).
The round head screw on the side is for attaching to something that would go through the hole, which does not have a passage into the nozzle.
This fits nicely into the hand, with thumb and finger resting in the opposing depressions."
These three are correct, aperture for 276.
R
R.H.
These two from last week are correct.
This one isn't a sprayer.
R
R.H.
Correct.
Still looking for info on these.
Close, but not correct.
Yes
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