Positional notation

Method for representing or encoding numbers Glossary of terms used in the positional numeral systems Positional notation, also known as place-value notation, is the property of a numeral system that the value represented by each symbol in a written numeral depends not only on its appearance but also on its position. Each symbol fits in a specific place or position, representing a power of a fixed base. The most common numeral system used today, the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, is a positional system in base ten; each of ten numerical digits is a distinct symbol representing one of the numbers zero through nine, and in the context of the full numeral, each symbol's value is the digit multiplied by a power of ten. Most early numeral systems, such as Roman numerals, are essentially based on the additive principle: each symbol type represents one fixed value, and the value of a numeral is the sum of the values of the separate symbols. For example, the Roman numeral CCXXVIII has two copies of the symbol C meaning 100, two copies of X meaning 10, one V meaning 5, and three copies of I meaning 1, so overall represents the number 100 + 100 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 228; by comparison,