Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/115

NUMBER STORIES thought that the old Roman numerals, which were commonly used in Germany at that time, would continue to be used.

Number Stories, p88-illustration.png A PAGE FROM JAKOB KÖBEL’S BOOK This shows Jakob’s strange way of writing fractions

So Jakob learned how to write the Arabic fraction, but he then did a very funny thing — he made up his mind that he would write an Arabic fraction with Roman numerals, and you can imagine how strange it must have looked.

No Roman ever wrote a fraction like that, and no one ever put such an awkward fraction 88