Questions tagged [roman-empire]
The roman-empire tag has no usage guidance.
3
questions
28
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Roman engineers
It is a common opinion that Romans did not contribute anything to exact sciences, but did contribute much to engineering. (How can it be otherwise, anyone who has been on the territory of the former ...
- 42.6k
7
votes
1
answer
632
views
Were ancient Romans so bad at computations before Arab numerals?
It is often said that Romans (see below) had a terrible number system, which made computations a mess. I do believe this, but I'm suspicious of the claim that nobody had better ways to do computations ...
- 165
6
votes
2
answers
632
views
Where did Ptolemy compare the Earth to the distance of fixed stars?
I read the following in C. S. Lewis, Miracles (page 77-8)
The immensity of the universe is not a recent discovery. More than seventeen hundred years ago Ptolemy taught that in relation to the ...
- 219