Заинтересовался происхождением появления обозначения IIII на циферблатах часов.
Нашёл следующие объяснения:
http://www.ubr.com/c...s/frequently-as ... dials.aspx
FAQ: Roman IIII vs. IV on Clock Dials
Donn Lathrop's page on IIII vs. IV
This is an extensive illustrated discussion of the topic.
Introduction
The following is an edited compendium of various theories, primarily postings to the Clocks Mailing List and to the alt.horology newsgroup in 1995-6 concerning why the Roman IIII is used instead of IV on clock dials.
W. I. Milham:
"There is a story that a famous clockmaker had constructed a clock for Louis XIV, king of France. The clockmaker had naturally used IV for four. When the clock was shown to the king, he remarked that IIII should have been used instead of IV. When it was explained to him that IV was correct, he still insisted, so that there was nothing to do but change the clock dial. This introduced the custom of using IIII for four. This is probably only a story, however, as IIII occurs long before the time of Louis XIV. And this same story is also told in connection with other monarchs. There is one reason why IIII is preferable to IV, and it may have caused the change. On the other side of the clock dial the VIII is the heaviest number, consisting of four heavy strokes and one light one, as it is usually made. It would destroy the symmetry to have the IV with only two heavy strokes on the other side. Thus IIII with four heavy strokes is much to be preferred. The change may therefore have been made for reasons of symmetry."
From Time & Timekeepers, W. I. Milham, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1947, p. 196:
Joerg Haus, alt.horology:
There was a long discussion about that in a German watch- magazine ('Uhrenmagazin', for those who may know it). The widely accepted argument for '4' being displayed as 'IIII' and not as 'IV' (as it would be correct!) is the following: Imagine a watch face with roman numerals, and look at the numerals opposite to each other - all of them are in perfect balance, except for the 'heavy' VIII and the 'light' IV; optical balance is re-established by printing an also 'heavy' IIII. This may sound rather silly, but for a similar reason you'll see many watches/clocks displayed on photographs with their hands showing 10:09; it's simply the 'most friendly' clock face .
Ray Mialki, alt.horology:
The reason isn't all that far fetched. Using four I's instead of IV for the "four" is due to the casting process of the numerals. Since some numerals were cast out of metal, or carved out of wood or bone, you need 20 I's, 4 V's, and 4 X's, even numbers of each, if you use four I's for "four". The molds would produce a long centre rod, with 10 I's, 2 V's, and 2 X's on each side.
Tom Frank, Clocks:
According to my high school Latin teacher (it was long enough ago that she may have been there personally), the reason clocks use IIII vice IV is out of respect for the Roman God Jupiter, whose name, in Latin, begins IV (the V being the U we now use, the I the J; sort of an abbreviation).
This convention would, of course, go back to the days of sundials (as an aside, I am also interested in them, mostly how best to make them...although living in New England they don't work very well!), and in my travels I have never seen a sundial made prior to the 19th century which had IV on it, always IIII. Sounds just odd enough she might have been right. Any ancient Roman/Greek scholars out there to offer some further insight?
Jeffrey A. Harvey:
This is trivial, but some of you might not have noticed... On Roman clock faces, "IIII" is often used in place of "IV" for the "4 o'clock" (excuse me... 04:00 or 16:00 per ISO9000 !). This is apparently because "IV" is an abbreviation for "Jupiter" in Roman times. So they decided to use "IIII" so that their public clocks didn't have "1 2 3 GOD 5..." written on them. I find it interesting that this bit of knowledge has been missed by some architects with their big, pompous monuments_to_themselves proudly displaying a giant "IV" just like a cheap imported clock.
Alan Heldman, alt.horology:
Yes, all of those theories have been mentioned. But the one not mentioned in the last post is the one that strikes me (four times) as the most likely: Classicists who have studied old Roman inscription of marble monuments etc. say that IIII was very often, perhaps predominantly, the form that was used in classical times. In a book picturing hundreds of tower clock dials, I found that about 95+% of them were in the IIII form. Interestingly, though, the most famous tower clock in the world, Big Ben, uses the IV form. There is also a hypothesis that the first clocks to use the IV form were clocks which had the rare feature of "Roman Striking." This used two bells, a higher pitch bell representing a one and a lower pitch bell representing a five. Thus four o'clock would be struck by one stroke of the small bell followed by one stroke of the big bell; six would be struck by one stroke of the big bell followed by one stroke of the small bell. This is a very efficient system, but died out almost entirely in the early 18th c..
Guus van Pelt
Like so many others I wondered about the presentation of the number four on roman dials. I think that there might be another explanation for using the IIII form, an explanation I have never read so far. What about the simple explanation that using IIII would build a dial that has four hour-indications using a I; four indications that use a V and four indications that use an X. Isn't that beautiful and symmetrical?
http://www.lascar.be/_en/5_news3.php
How do you write “IV” in roman figures: IV or IIII ?
The “IV” is sometimes used but most often we see the four parallel lines.
Two explanations can be provided:
1. It must be remembered that until the 14th century the normal way to write it was IIII.
The first dial designers used this format to be as clear and understandable as possible, since this is the way to count on fingers.
2. An aesthetic reason is also often presented; indeed, this allows watchmakers to maintain the distribution of the dial in three parts of four figures each: one in I, one in V and one in X. This graphic balance is even stronger because the right and left parts both contain 14 elements.
http://www.ballyhoo....sg/citizenweb8/ ... 5misc.html
Why is IIII used for indicating 4 o'clock instead of IV on the watch dial?
A. It is said that the origin goes back to the year 1364 in Paris. When the then French king, Charles V, saw the numeral IV on the clock on the tower in his palace, he disliked the way to express 4 by the roman numeral IV, because it seemed to him like V minus I(5 minus 1). He immediately ordered to change the IV to IIII. Since then using IIII on the dial/face has become the standard among watch makers. This is one of the rarely known episodes in our history.
http://www.tribunein...com/2008/200803 ... um/art.htm
'ART & SOUL
Consciousness of time
The coming of the mechanical clock led to a new ordering of activities, says B. N. Goswamy
In a gathering at the home of a friend close to San Diego, a gentleman posed us all a question: why, do you think, he asked, is the numeral 4, almost routinely printed in Roman figures on classical clock and watch dials, appear as IIII — four vertical strokes — instead of the more correct IV, that is, one vertical bar preceding a V? To be candid, most of us had never even noticed the oddly written number, and when some looked at the watches on their wrists, they did find printed a IIII instead of the ‘correct’ IV. Watches featuring so-called Arabic numerals are obviously different, but a great many watches, and clocks, continue to use Roman numerals, and most of them have this odd feature, it was pointed out to us. How does one explain this?
I do not quite remember the answer we got, if one was given. But, greatly intrigued, I did, again, some reading on my own. It appears that in the horological world — that of making timepieces etc. — this remains one of the most frequently asked questions. And it has stayed a mystery for long years. There is certainly no agreement on the explanation: only guesses. There is the aesthetic explanation, for one. The use of IIII has continued to this day, it has been stated, because, occurring as it does on the right half of the face of the clock, it balances, visually, the ‘heavy’ numeral VIII on the left side. Else, the right half would be too ‘light’. Perhaps. There is another explanation at hand, too. Using four vertical bars, it is said, builds a dial that has four-hour indications using a I; four indications using a V, and the remaining four using an X. Symmetry is the key, according to this.
But there is at least one more explanation, a more classical one. In the Roman alphabet, the letter I stands both for I and J; likewise, the letter V stands both for V and U. Because of this, the number IV can also be read as JU, which is the beginning of the name of the great JUPITER, supreme deity of the ancient Romans. For the name of the great god to appear on dials would have been inappropriate, in this view. Hence the practice of printing IIII instead of IV which goes back to very old times. Any takers? Or guesses?
http://www.timezone....library/comarti ... ticles0012
Question:Why is IIII used in the four o'clock position on watch dials with Roman numerals?
Answer: C'mon now, it would look pretty silly at the two or three o'clock positions!
Переводить не буду, полагаю, и так всё понятно (то есть, понятно, что ясности с этим вопросом нет).