Roman numerals
numbers in the Roman numeral system / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roman numerals are a numeral system that was used by ancient Rome. Numbers in this system use letters from the Latin alphabet. Currently, it uses seven symbols:[1]
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The Europeans still used Roman numerals even after the fall of the Roman Empire. From the 14th century, the Europeans replaced Roman numerals with Arabic numerals. However, people still use Roman numerals to this day.
One place in which they are sometimes seen is on clock faces (the front of a clock). For example, on the clock of Big Ben, the hours from 1 to 12 are written as:
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII
The IV and IX can be read as "one less than 5" (4) and "one less than 10" (9). On many clocks that use Roman numerals, however, 4 is written as IIII.[2]