While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
- glossing over that Roman numerals requires more mental faculties to read since every number involves extra steps of addition to convert than Western Arabic
Why would a Roman convert numbers? They would deal with LXV as LXV. Yes, it would take them a longer because the number itself is longer. But MM is easier to read than 1000. Would you say that Western Arabic was terrible for the French since they say 80 as quatre-vignts? So they have to convert those eight tens into four twenties?
Addition is almost as simple as multiplying by 10 in Hindu-Arabic.While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
- overstating the differences in addition/subtraction
XXVI + XXVII is XXXXVVIII = XXXXXIII = LIII
Subtraction is just canceling shared numerals.
XXXVII - XXVI = XI
You literally just remove the shared numerals. It's vastly easier. I'm not overstating anything with the addition or subtraction.
This is the major advantage of the Roman system.
While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
- overstating the level of abstraction - surely a 1:1 tally of group of units to single symbol is lowering the level not raising it?
I wouldn't think so. III tells me there are three things, because I can see that there are three things there. A single symbol for three takes away the essential threeness of three.
The mayan system is even better at this than the Roman system since they don't have the weird collection letter/numbers, rather they stick with the tallies and positioning.
While I agree a total victory is an overstatement you yourself are:
- understating the advantages in multiplication/division.
Yeah. Hindu-Arabic division is vastly better. Multiplication isn't easier in Hindu-Arabic but it does take less time and writing.