CaveLamb wrote:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
CaveLamb on Wed, 25 May 2011 22:37:00 -0500
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
Steve B wrote:
"Lewis Hartswick" wrote in message
...
Tim Shoppa wrote:
So make it CMXIV.CCCXCIX meters high.

Tim.
Are you sure about this ".CCCXCIX" part???
:-) decimal fractions in Roman Numerals.
...Lew...
Multiplication and division must be a bitch. But then, I had a
hexadecimal converter in a calculator I had in computer school, so I
imagine it could be
programmed into just about anything. Even common numbers that are
easily illustrated, such as 10.341 meters, or 30 ft. 11in. 13/64ths
would take a lot of letters.

Ok, but when you have no ZERO and no Decimal Point in your system?

THEN what?

CCCCLXXXXIIJ Fathoms plus three quarters of another.

I think it's more likely they used cubits...

Or hands?

Noah used cubits in Genesis 6:11:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...+6&version=NIV

Cheers!
Rich

Lewis Hartswick wrote:
Tim Shoppa wrote:

So make it CMXIV.CCCXCIX meters high.

Are you sure about this ".CCCXCIX" part???
:-) decimal fractions in Roman Numerals.

Yeah, shouldn't the dot be called the "Roman point?" ;-)


Cheers!
Rich

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Rich Grise on Tue, 24 May 2011 13:04:28
-0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote:
" fired this volley in

[Narrator voice Lloyd Sherr (stage name Max Raphael)] "In the
aqueducts water flowed swiftly, producing as much as 1300 pounds of
pressure per square inch. 25 times the standard water pressure of a
city today."

As typically done by video journalists, they mix, mish, and mash techno-
babble until they come up with something that sounds "good", then go
with it.

Let's say they fetched the water from a mountain lake. If the lake were
3000' above the point of use, then the total available water column
pressure would be 1300psi. Now, of course, it's "open", and not held in
a closed column. So, in fact, the pressure is 0 psig at any point along
the aquaduct. But the _available_ column pressure is 1300psi, 3000'
below the source, if enclosed.

Simple, typical, journalistic, wrong-headed interpretation of physics.

They got their science education from Saturday Matinee "B" Sci-Fi movies.

The animated ones.

IMHO.

Nah, I'm too old-school for that. I'm thinking the likes of these:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050177/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051418/

Admittedly, Marvin the Martian was animated. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

CaveLamb on Fri, 27 May 2011 12:54:52 -0500
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
CaveLamb on Wed, 25 May 2011 22:37:00 -0500
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
Steve B wrote:
"Lewis Hartswick" wrote in message
...
Tim Shoppa wrote:
So make it CMXIV.CCCXCIX meters high.

Tim.
Are you sure about this ".CCCXCIX" part???
:-) decimal fractions in Roman Numerals.
...Lew...
Multiplication and division must be a bitch. But then, I had a hexadecimal
converter in a calculator I had in computer school, so I imagine it could be
programmed into just about anything. Even common numbers that are easily
illustrated, such as 10.341 meters, or 30 ft. 11in. 13/64ths would take a
lot of letters.



Ok, but when you have no ZERO and no Decimal Point in your system?

THEN what?

CCCCLXXXXIIJ Fathoms plus three quarters of another.


I think it's more likely they used cubits...

"... the yard? Whatever happened to cubits?" Outraged Roman
customer on the change to decimal numbers in a sketch by The Frantics
(on the occasion of Canada's conversion to the Metric system.)

Or hands?

Turns out the Romans had a lot of measurements. The Stadia, the
pace, and I used the ancient Greek Fathom because I had no online
access to double check when I wrote that.
--
pyotr filipivich
We will drink no whiskey before its nine.
It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

pyotr filipivich wrote:
CaveLamb on Fri, 27 May 2011 12:54:52 -0500
lot of letters.


Ok, but when you have no ZERO and no Decimal Point in your system?

THEN what?
CCCCLXXXXIIJ Fathoms plus three quarters of another.

I think it's more likely they used cubits...

"... the yard? Whatever happened to cubits?" Outraged Roman
customer on the change to decimal numbers in a sketch by The Frantics
(on the occasion of Canada's conversion to the Metric system.)
Or hands?

Turns out the Romans had a lot of measurements. The Stadia, the
pace, and I used the ancient Greek Fathom because I had no online
access to double check when I wrote that.

It's probably hard for us to imagine life without decimals - or zeros.

But I'm sure it made perfect sense to them.
12 stadias, 22 paces, 7 hands, and a finger nail or two?

No algebra, no trigonometry, no fractions of any kind!
Basically an integer world.


--

Richard Lamb
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~sv_temptress

On May 27, 7:37*pm, pyotr filipivich wrote:
...
* * * * Turns out the Romans had a *lot of measurements. *The Stadia, the
pace, and I used the ancient Greek Fathom because I had no online
access to double check when I wrote that.
--
pyotr filipivich

A replica of a Roman pocket calculator:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...bacusRecon.jpg

It uses base 2 and base 5, not exactly BCRN but close.

jsw

Paul Hovnanian P.E. wrote:
CaveLamb wrote:

[snip]
Ok, but when you have no ZERO and no Decimal Point in your system?

THEN what?

Hire an Arab engineering firm.


ALMOST got my beer, Paul!


--

Richard Lamb
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~cavelamb
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~sv_temptress

On May 27, 7:57*pm, CaveLamb wrote:
...
No algebra, no trigonometry, no fractions of any kind!
Basically an integer world.
...
Richard Lamb

No soap either.
http://www.pompeii.org.uk/m.php/muse...i-it-111-m.htm

jsw

On May 31, 2:03*am, CaveLamb wrote:
Paul Hovnanian P.E. wrote:
CaveLamb wrote:

[snip]
Ok, but when you have no ZERO and no Decimal Point in your system?

THEN what?

Hire an Arab engineering firm.

ALMOST got my beer, Paul!

Richard Lamb

The commander of this unit wrote that in nomadic tribal regions of
North Africa the locals built NOTHING, if you saw one stone upon
another you could be sure it had been placed there by a Roman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popski's_Private_Army

jsw

Jim Wilkins on Sat, 28 May 2011 05:25:20 -0700
(PDT) typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
On May 27, 7:37*pm, pyotr filipivich wrote:
...
* * * * Turns out the Romans had a *lot of measurements. *The Stadia, the
pace, and I used the ancient Greek Fathom because I had no online
access to double check when I wrote that.
--
pyotr filipivich

A replica of a Roman pocket calculator:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...bacusRecon.jpg

It uses base 2 and base 5, not exactly BCRN but close.

Cool.

I recall reading that the Babylonians had a mixed base to sixty
system. Crazy.
--
pyotr filipivich
We will drink no whiskey before its nine.
It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

CaveLamb on Fri, 27 May 2011 18:57:35 -0500
typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
CaveLamb on Fri, 27 May 2011 12:54:52 -0500
lot of letters.
Ok, but when you have no ZERO and no Decimal Point in your system?

THEN what?
CCCCLXXXXIIJ Fathoms plus three quarters of another.

I think it's more likely they used cubits...

"... the yard? Whatever happened to cubits?" Outraged Roman
customer on the change to decimal numbers in a sketch by The Frantics
(on the occasion of Canada's conversion to the Metric system.)
Or hands?

Turns out the Romans had a lot of measurements. The Stadia, the
pace, and I used the ancient Greek Fathom because I had no online
access to double check when I wrote that.

It's probably hard for us to imagine life without decimals - or zeros.

The Introduction of "Arabic Numbers" and Zero was a paradigm
shift of the first order. Still is, for a lot of kids. (And lets
not get into teachers who do not understand that 3 - 5 = -2 is a valid
calculation.)

The really hard thing to get people to understand is that a Roman
X is not 10 but "ten", that VII is not 7 but "Five and one and one".

But I'm sure it made perfect sense to them.
12 stadias, 22 paces, 7 hands, and a finger nail or two?

No algebra, no trigonometry, no fractions of any kind!

Remember "rational numbers" - those numbers whcih can be expressed
as a ratio of whole numbers? 3/4, 8/7, 99/34 or 22/7 (a good
approximation Pi). But the Pythagoreans had their "crisis of faith"
when they could not make the square root of 2 out to be a "rational"
number

Fractions you would have, in terms of half and quarters, and
"halves of quarters" or in ratios "as three is to five". Musical
notes have the hemi, demi and semi quavers, which get agglutinated to
signify shorter and shorter notes. (One sixty forth notes, anyone?)

But without symbol and place notation - "math is hard".

Basically an integer world.

It's a Rational Number world - "nothing is real...."

tschus
pyotr

--
pyotr filipivich
We will drink no whiskey before its nine.
It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

On Jun 2, 12:32*pm, pyotr filipivich wrote:
...
* * * * I recall reading that the Babylonians had a mixed base to sixty
system. *Crazy.
--
pyotr filipivich

Crazy like the minutes and seconds of time and angles?

For programming I memorized 3600 seconds per hour, 86,400 per day, and
525,600 minutes per year.

OK, the last is a song from "RENT".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8iTeDl_Wug

jsw