📜🔢 Why Did We STOP Using Roman Numerals? | The Change That Changed Everything

2 months ago
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In this fascinating episode of Numberphile, Rob Eastaway explores one of the most important transitions in human history: the move from Roman Numerals to Indo-Arabic numerals — and why it revolutionized the way we write, calculate, and think.

From ancient inscriptions to theater ledgers, including the diary of Philip Henslowe (a contemporary of Shakespeare), Rob takes us through:

🔢 Why Roman numerals were so limiting

📕 How Indo-Arabic numbers made math possible

🎭 What everyday records from the 1500s reveal about the change

💡 How this transition shaped modern science, business, and education

This is more than a math lesson — it’s a window into how we started thinking like modern humans.

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