Most people recognize Roman numerals as they are used on clocks, on buildings, and in some copyright information such as during a television show or documents, but many people do not know how they function or work. Roman numerals look like uppercase alphabetic characters and have an associated value assigned to each of them. I stands for one, V stands for five, X stands for ten, L stands for fifty, C stands for one hundred, D stands for five hundred and M stands for one thousand. It is important to note that Roman numerals cannot represent any number higher than one thousand with a single character.

When figuring a Roman numeral's value a series of subtraction or addition is involved depending upon the value and placement of the numerals. "III" has a value of three; "IV" has a value of four. If the numeral preceding another numeral is smaller, then it is subtracted from the following numeral. If the preceding numeral is larger than the numeral following it is added to the following numeral. For example, "XVI" has a value of twenty-six. These parameters are used in conjunction to obtain values such as "CXIV" which has a value of one hundred and fourteen.

A numeral is not to be preceded by a numeral that is less than one tenth of its value. Simply put, ninety-nine cannot be written a "IC" because "I" is one one-hundreth of "C." To write ninety-nine properly in Roman numerals it should read "XCIX." The first "X" is subtracted from "C" which provides the number ninety. The "I" is subtracted from the last "X" to provide nine and then the numbers are added together to obtain ninety-nine.

LINKS:

Roman Numerals Explained

A CHart of Roman Numerals

Basic Roman Numeration

Roman Numerals History and Use

Roamn Numeral Conversion Guide

A Book On Reading and Writing Roman Numerals

Conversion Chart for Roman Numerals from One to One Hundred

Computation with Roman Numerals

Roman Numeral Converter

Roman Numeral and
Date Conversion with Roman Calculator & Roman Numerals Test

Javascript ROman Numeral Converter

A Roman Numeral Chart

Learn to Translate Roman Numerals

Roman Numerals Matching Game

Short History on Roman Numerals and Their Usage

Roman Numerals History and Growth

Other Uses of Roman Numerals

Mathematics and Roman Numerals

Ask Dr Math - Roman Numerals

Ancient Roman Numbers