Why Were the Romans Bad at Math?

The Romans built one of the greatest empires in history and we carry their legacy to this day ... yet for all their greatness, math was not their strong suit. At all. Ever wonder why?

Have a fancy historical idea you'd like me to cover? Drop a comment and let me know!

[joshuabessire]

I remember some Eastern European mathmatician being asked why his country had so many great mathmaticians. He said that his was a poor country and couldn't afford impressive scientific equipment, and all you need for math was a pencil and paper.

[LordBruuh]

I never would have thought the Romans were bad at math considering their precision engineering, but I can understand there is a difference between knowing something just "works" and knowing the intricate mathematical theories behind the "thing" in question, whether it be an aqueduct, coliseum, etc.

[billstrutz]

There's a simple reason why the Romans didn't "get" algebra:
They always thought that X equals ten.

[andrea]

Just one thing...memorizing was important at the time and more importantly after the fall of Rome cause if you had find a very interesting book in some hidden private library or later on in monastery the first time you have read it may be also the last. A philosopher or an astronomer had no time to go back to Alexandria or Nicea if he lived in Londinium (London) that is why people in antiquity were taught how to memorize lots of things and more importantly memorizing them fast.

[shanemize]

It would never occur to me that a society known for engineering marvels was also "bad" at math. However, I've never understood how they did actual math with Roman numerals. Very cool video!

[powerist]

And there’s Byzantines who are “what if Romans and Greeks mingled their customs in medieval Christian context”.
Being one of the few intact Empire with complex government and academia in Europe during the Middle Ages being a major point.

[amdasaba]

I thought the title was "Why were the Roman Mad at Bath?"

[OAlexisSamaO]

"in civilizations with lower literacy, the most effective way to demonstrate ones power was not through intellectual superiority but through something more material"
lel this is exactly why i started to learn electronics,
i live in mexico and my passion is programing and i started to study on my own and made some programs, macros and games, yet my uncles
always thought i was wasting my time or doing nothing productive (i was adopted by mi grandparents so my uncles feel that his parents are helping me way too much), so i started to study electronics made some projects like obstacle avoid robot a homemade 3d printer, robot arm, currently im working on some glove to control the robot arm and in an automated chess board
with this projects that to be honest were easier to do than some programs or games i had made, they now stoped talking bad of me at my back and now they morally support me to go to the university.

[maximthemagnificent]

This reminds me of an article I read once defending so-called "useless" research. Its main argument was that it's difficult to tell far in advance which scientific explorations will lead to something important (i.e. you don't know what you don't know, so better diversify your research). I'd argue that this was the nature of the Roman failure at mathematics.

[gabeshaw]

Greece has many hills and mountains which provided a lot of defence, so they didn’t need to do a whole lot of military innovation. This, for the most part, kept Greek city states from conquering and destroying one another, as well as preventing outside enemies from conquering them for the most part, allowing them to flourish culturally. Italy is actually pretty flat on either side of the Apennine Mountains. Before it started conquering the known world, Rome faced a lot of existential threats and was constantly at war with its Latin, Etruscan, Umbrian, and Samnite neighbors, as well as the raiding Gauls and Germans, the Carthaginians, and occasionally the Greeks. The best minds were put to use in law, administration/bureaucracy, politics, war, and engineering.

[queldron]

Thing is that the Greeks were famous Engineers too with grand works and public buildings.

[johnford]

Correction: Al-Khwarizmi was the father of Algebra. His book “al-jabr” which literally meant “balancing” as in balancing an equation, was introduced to Italy where his name was changed to Al-Goritmi, which is where we get the word “algorithm” from.

[daca]

Well, as an engineer, I can say math is quite usefull in my profession.

And by "quite usefull" I ofc mean "you must know it to even be concidered for a job"

[DTux]

Question...
How does the Roman system make addition and subtraction harder? It is visually easier to do.

MDCCCVII subtract MCCII is DCV and I didn't even have to think about what those symbols mean

Multiplication isn't difficult. Repeat each group of symbols a number of times and simplify

XVI by VII
XVI XVI XVI XVI XVI XVI XVI



LLXII
CXII

Or double one side as you halve the other

XVI by IIII
XXVVII by II
XXXXVVVVIIII by I
XXXXVVVVIIII is is LXIIII

Even simple division isn't that hard. Just break em down, and halve em

C divide by IIII
LL by IIII
L by II
by II
XXXXVV by II
XXV by I
XXV is our answer

I don't even have to understand the numbers I'm working with to do things.

Yeah, not having 0 is a bummer, but most math involving it is fairly simple anyway

0 groups of something is 0
Don't divide something into 0 pieces
Something ± 0 is the same thing

Unless you consider logarithms simple math, I really don't get that first statement

[mikehunt]

1:41 i died. what a shocking development.

[otherpatrickgill]

it sounds so strange to hear someone in a British sounding accent say "math"
Outside the United States (we don't talk about Canada) mathematics is taken as plural, since it's comprised of many branches (algebra, arithmetic, calculus...) and the "s" indicating pluralization is carried over to the abbreviated form.
We don't abbreviate pantaloons to "pant" and so we don't abbreviate mathematics to "math".
Your narrator deserves a medal for flawlessly using the American contraction without sounding like he's just gargled live frogs

[Altorin]

roman numerals weren't designed for math, they were designed to be carved into stone.

They're pretty good numbers for carving into stone. Arguably much better for it then arabic numerals. Could you imagine carving an 8 into stone? Shudders.

[has]

Do one on the history of plagues/pandemics and how people responded and the after effects - would get a lot of views now, I think, especially in this format.

[dCash]

I just found your channel and you're answering questions I never knew I needed the answers to

[jgizzy]

This is so crazy, how does a video LIKE THIS only get 4, 175 views in more than 6 It should be a few hundred thousand at least. All of these videos!! I am shook, wtf is wrong with youtube algorithm.