An Open Letter to Phil Plait

I must apologize, dear reader, for not having updated this little blog after having started with so much zeal, but I’ve recently moved to a new, bigger apartment and haven’t had much time. Of course that’s no excuse considering that, next to the size of the cosmos, I haven’t really moved, my new place isn’t any bigger and updating a blog requires no time whatsoever.

I was going to write about how I’m making the most of the view from my new balcony, having managed to pick out some of Luna’s more prominent craters, with a little help from the “Beginning observing” section of Astronomy.

Fig. 15 View from My Balcony

The phase of Luna betrays how long it took to get around to blogging.

Instead, I find myself having to use my first chance to really get some writing done to defend something I love against a cruel, unwarranted attack by Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy. Dr. Plait, this is for you.

I checked out your blog tonight (as I’ve been doing frequently since my beloved brought home a telescope) and was outraged - OUTRAGED! - by your attack on Roman numerals. What had, up ‘til that point, been a cute, little column about 11/11/11 and binary numbers suddenly turned ugly as you, without provocation, gave my most-cherished number system a sucker punch.

Was this not the system of Lucretius? How ‘bout showing a little respect, Dr. Plait.

“Our current method is way, way better,” you said. “In fact, I’m not really sure why Roman notation is even taught anymore. Seriously, who needs it? Movie copyrighters and SuperBowl fans. That’s about it.”

Pure bigotry! Better by whose standards? Certainly not the high standards of movie copyrighters and SuperBowl fans who demand their numbers express themselves with a certain sense of occasion.

Don’t get me wrong; when it comes to elegance and grace, there’s no substituting the smooth, sensuous curves of those mystic, Arabic numerals (so profaned by digital clocks), but if you want to show values in epic grandiosity, you can’t beat the Romans.

Rambo 3? I don’t think so.

Would you really have robbed fellow soi-disant geeks of the moment in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Harrison Ford finds the Roman ten on the rug in the library and quips, “X marks the spot,”? I suppose you’d have had the carpet show a giant binary number two. I bet you’d have liked that, wouldn’t you? You sick, twisted antinumerite.

I’ll have you know what you see as “ungainly” I see as a fun, little puzzle I get to solve, and it takes less than a second out of my day.

MCMLXXVI ...quick!

As soon as you see it, you want to solve it, don’t you? It’s like those skill-testing questions on draw ballots. Brains need exercise, even if it’s just a quick bit of grade II arithmetic between going to the store an picking put the kids.

By the way, MCMLXXVI Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi is the year I was born. What’s your birthyear in Roman numerals? Quick!

But let’s get back to the question of what constitutes a “better” number system. Those bold, striking lines that look so impressive when chiseled into stone actually evolved from a shorthand merchants would use to count goods. It’s just like when you tally numbers drawing four strokes down and the fifth across them. For these ordinary Roman citizens working their market stalls, it was a superb number system: the system of the working class. And we in contemporary society use it to make documents look regal. There’s a certain poetry to that.

“But that’s all in the past,” you say?

Well look again at your own article. It shows that in the digital age the Arabic system is just as cumbersome and outdated. Our computers only understand I and nulla.  Converting between decimal and binary is a pain in the ass. Like those vendors of antiquity, our tools require a different system. It takes almost no effort at all to tell you 11 1111 in hexadecimal is 3F. What a wonderful system. It puts the characters 0-9 in their rightful place, below A-F - which, by the way, are both Roman and numerals.

It was easy for me to grasp the concepts of different number systems when I was XVIII because Mrs. Shane taught me about Roman numerals when I was VII. I think that laid out some pretty useful neuropathways.

And I’ll never forget the day I realized almost every clock with Roman numerals used IIII instead of IV. What the hell is that all about? These are the mysteries that make the world rich

But I suppose such things seem trivial to a hater such as yourself.  Well, I saved the best for last. And get ready, ‘cause here comes the Prime Matter of Pwnage.

No, I really mean it. Prime Matter. The Periodic Table of the Elements uses Roman numerals to label its columns. So lump scientists in with movie copyrighters and SuperBowl fans. That’s III groups right there.

Did that one sting a little? Good. Serves you right for declaring war on Rome.

Sincerely,

Peter Vesuwalla

p.s. The fact space buffs will never get to read about “Apollo XI” and “Mercury-Atlas VI” is yet another reason to dislike NASA. Hope you agree. Love your blog. Best wishes.