Who Invented Abacus? History with Interesting Facts

It has also become a symbol of cultural heritage and a reminder of the vital role that ancient mathematical tools have played in shaping the modern world. The Chinese abacus, also known as the suanpan (算盤/算盘, lit. “calculating tray”), comes in various lengths and widths, depending on the operator. There are two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom one, to represent numbers in a bi-quinary coded decimal-like system. The suanpan can be reset to the starting position instantly by a quick movement along the horizontal axis to spin all the beads away from the horizontal beam at the center. The beads that are located at the lower of the frame are called “Earthly beads,” and these contain one value in the first column. The beads are counted when they move towards the reckoning bar, and if any bead does not touch the reckoning bar, that column contains value zero.

THE Salamis Tablet

The Babylonians, Ancient Chinese, Japanese and Russians all used a calculating tool similar to a modern-day abacus. As the most ancient calculator known, the origin and inventor of the abacus is unknown. It’s been used for centuries in China and has a long history of use in Ancient Greece, Rome, Russia Japan, and Babylon. Abacus can be learnt at any age, but it is always preferred that the children are introduced to the Abacus at a very young age.

The evolution of the counting device can be divided into three ages: Ancient Times, Middle Ages, and Modern Times.

• Though it can’t be stated clearly but the Ancient china is attributed for the early use of abacus.
• It’s a useful learning device for the visually impaired, as well as for anyone who wants to learn the roots of the modern calculator.
• An abacus is a manual calculating tool used for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.
• On this instrument, calculations are made with beads, or counters, instead of numerals.
• In the Middle Ages, the Abacus was further developed in Europe, and merchants and traders used it for bookkeeping and accounting.
• For example, the Roman Abacus, used in ancient Rome, was similar to the Chinese Abacus but had slight differences in design.
• Early European abacuses used grooved channels and stones instead of beads.

The Schoty is a Russian abacus invented in the 17th century and still used today in some parts. The accountant sits in the middle of his side of the table, so that everybody can see him, and so that his hand can move freely at its work. When the sum demanded of the sheriff has been set out in heaps of counters, the payments made into the Treasury or otherwise are similarly set out in heaps underneath. The lower line is simply subtracted from the upper.” —The Dialogue on the Exchequer, 1177. “The Exchequer is an oblong board measuring about 10 feet by 5…with a rim around it about four finger breadths in height, to prevent anything set on it from falling off.

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So, they can be introduced to Abacus training, after that they can start practising addition and subtraction. Ancient Romans utilized stones as counters up and down on a smooth table to do calculations. It was developed to help bankers and money changers, businessmen and engineers. Additionally Romans invented other types of Abacus such as the dust Abacus, the line Abacus, the grooved Abacus.

• Additionally Romans invented other types of Abacus such as the dust Abacus, the line Abacus, the grooved Abacus.
• In 1958 Lee Kai-chen published a manual for his “new” abacus designed with 4 decks (it combines two abaci; the top abacus is a small 1/4 soroban and the bottom one is a 2/5 suan-pan).
• It also develops the creative and imaginative abilities of the students.
• We have to manipulate beads either using the index finger or the thumb of one hand.
• It is believed that the first abacus was made by Ancient Mesopotamians of Sumeria .
• The Japanese Abacus, or soroban, has a similar design but has one dot on the top row and four beads on the bottom.
• Compare the quick rate of progress in last one-thousand years to the slow progress during the first one-thousand years of civilization.

Who Invented Abacus?

In this article, we will discuss what is an abacus, the basic information like who invented it, what is the history of the abacus, what are its different types, and what works have been performed in this field. We will also look into some of the uses and achievements of Abacus. Later, the soroban was introduced at the end of the 19th century on which each rod included one five-unit counter and four one-unit counters. The functionality of the soroban operation was mentioned in arithmetic compiled books of national grade-school by the Education Ministry in 1938. In about 700 ce, the Hindus invented a numeral system that made adding with written numbers as easy as adding on an abacus. The Arabs soon adopted this system, and they introduced it into Europe more than 1,000 years ago.

The Suan-pan, the Soroban and the Schoty are from the period c. 1200 A.D to the present.

Abacus, is an instrument that is used to perform calculations by sliding counters along with rods or grooves. They have slots with beads in them that can be moved back and forth in the slots similar to counters on a counting board. They resemble the Chinese and Japanese abacuses, suggesting that the use of the abacus spread to many parts of the world from Greece and Rome to China, Japan, and Russia.

Counting

The abacus frame has a series of vertical rods on which a number of wooden beads are allowed to slide freely. A horizontal beam separates the structure into two sections, known as the upper deck and the lower deck. Monikered as ‘The First Calculator,’ this nifty device allowed ancient scholars to perform large digit numerical operations with ease, long before the invention of the written numerical system. The abacus is an instrument made of wood that has a series of strings or wires placed in parallel and each string has ten beads or balls that have mobility.

The Salamis Tablet, the Roman Calculi and Hand-abacus are from the period c. 300 B.C.E. to c. 500 C.E.

In the Middle Ages, the Abacus was further developed in Europe, and merchants and traders used it for bookkeeping and accounting. In the 17th century, the Abacus was introduced to Japan, where it was embraced and further refined, resulting in the development of a unique style of Abacus called the Soroban. Today, the Abacus is still used in many parts of the world, particularly in Asia, as a teaching and learning arithmetic tool.

• Since the first abacus, the physical structure of abaci has changed, but the concept has survived almost five millennia, and is still in use today.
• In austere field environments, rudimentary abaci have been commonly used by infantry soldiers among many of the worlds’ armed forces up to the present day.
• Furthermore, the abacus improves the overall conception of math, and it also enhances the problem-solving ability and faster calculation skills.
• Do the same thing in the ones place, “borrowing” a bead from the tens place (making it 6) to subtract 7 from 12 instead of 2.
• However, China and Japan have the longest history of consistent abacus use and development.
• It is an instrument that is used to calculate or count by using sliding counters and a rod.

Chinese Abacus

The abacus has endured all this time because of its power — both as a calculator, and as a tool for enrichment. So this ancient calculating device continues to build valuable skills relevant today. While less common in most of the world, it remains ingrained in Asian culture. Egypt – Ancient Egyptians used a primitive device involving a slab of stone covered with sand for making calculations as early as the 2nd millennium BCE.

Abacus Counting

Do the same thing in the ones place, “borrowing” a bead from the tens place (making it 6) to subtract 7 from 12 instead of 2. Eight removed from nine is one, so a single bead is left up in the hundreds place. It is easier to use one’s thumb to move the beads in the top row, and the index finger to move the beads in the bottom row.

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The earliest counting device would have been the human fingers or toes. In this article, we’ll explore the history and functionality of this ancient mathematical tool. Abacus, calculating device, probably of Babylonian origin, that was long important in commerce. It is the ancestor of the modern calculating machine and computer. Together, these benefits make abacus calculation faster, more intuitive, and less prone to careless errors.

Types of Abacuses

When the right hand is used on the abacus, the left side cells of the brain are activated. The left-brain activity is interpreting, and the right brain activity is visualizing. Therefore, both the left and right sides of the brain work commonly and help to whole-brain development. This is known to be the modification of the current Abacus to support the learners that have vision disabilities. The learners can manipulate the beads that would in effect help them in the in-depth understanding of the numbers. This Abacus can be used to calculate various numbers involving arithmetic processes like addition, subtraction, division or multiplication.

The Salamis Tablet (c. 300 BCE)

The Abacus was so important in ancient times that it was often called the “calculator.” Experienced abacists can perform some calculations faster than an electronic calculator, but it takes a great deal of practice and expertise to reach that level. For most people, the ease and simplicity of using calculators and other devices overshadow the potential gains of learning to make calculations on an abacus.

More Powerful than a Calculator

It is however to be kept in mind that the student should be well learnt with numbers upto 100 before they start learning Abacus. The introduction to the Abacus at a very young age will help the students immensely in understanding the basics of numbers, which will in effect play a very major role in their higher education. It also develops the creative and imaginative abilities of the students. Mesopotamia or Sumerian civilization used the first Abacus to count. It is the belief that Old Babylonian scholars have used this Abacus to perform as addition or subtraction of numbers. Today we find the oldest surviving counting board to be the Salamis Tablet.

Along with slide rules, calculators, and electronic computers, the abacus is part of a long tradition of mathematical machines. Although invented thousands of years ago, abacuses are still used as education tools and for quick calculations in settings where electricity may not be available. However, merchants who traded goods needed a more comprehensive way to keep count of the many goods they bought and sold. The abacus is one of many counting devices invented in ancient times to help count large numbers, but it is believed that the abacus was first used by the Babylonians as early as 2,400 B.C. In the bead frame shown, the gap between the 5th and 6th wire, corresponding to the color change between the 5th and the 6th bead on each wire, suggests the latter use. Teaching multiplication, e.g. 6 times 7, may be represented by shifting 7 beads on 6 wires.

SOROBAN

It has endured over time and is still in use in some countries. The word abacus is a word that exists in several languages and has different etymological origins that until now are still much discussed. Abaco comes from Latin and is formed by the terms “abacus” and their respective plural, “abaci“. We can mention that, for example, in Greek language the term was used as “ἄβαξ” or abax and there was also a second Greek word which, applied to the term, “ἄβακoς” or abakos, meant flat surface or table. There are many ways to say the word abacus, for example, in Chinese it is pronounced Suan Pan, in Japanese Soroban, in Korean Tschu Pan, in Hebrew Jeshboniá and in Russian Schoty, to mention some examples.

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Abacus, a counting frame, is a primitive yet innovative tool used for arithmetic calculations. Its origin can be traced back to ancient civilizations such as Egypt, China, and Greece. An abacus typically comprises a wooden or metal frame with rows of beads or stones that slide along rods or wires. The position of the beads denotes their value, and this arrangement aids in performing simple to complex arithmetic operations.

Merchants and traders needed to maintain an inventory of the goods they bought and sold. When the Hindu-Arabic number system came into use, abaci ( plural of abacus) were adapted for place-value abacus market url counting. The abacus was used as a counting tool before the advent of the Arabic numeral system. But don’t let the simplistic design of the abacus fool you into thinking a calculator is better.

The abacus, called Suan-Pan in Chinese, as it appears today, was first chronicled circa 1200 C.E. On each rod, the classic Chinese abacus has 2 beads on the upper deck and 5 on the lower deck; such an abacus is also referred to as a 2/5 abacus. The 2/5 style survived unchanged until circa 1850 at which time the 1/5 (one bead on the top deck and five beads on the bottom deck) abacus appeared. During Greek and Roman times, counting boards, like the Roman hand-abacus, that survive are constructed from stone and metal (as a point of reference, the Roman empire fell circa 500 C.E.). This time-line above (click to enlarge) shows the evolution from the earliest counting board to the present day abacus. The introduction of the Arabic numbering system in Western Europe stopped further development of counting boards.

As time passed, the design of an Abacus kit has widely varied in terms of style, size and material but the design of Abacus kits remains to be in a combination of rods and pebbles. Deriving inspiration from Chinese Suanpan, Soroban came into existence in the 14th century. The beads in the Japanese Soroban are made from wood and bamboo rods to slide up and down.

• It is a rectangular frame with rows of beads or stones that slide along rods or wires.
• Experienced abacists can perform some calculations faster than an electronic calculator, but it takes a great deal of practice and expertise to reach that level.
• It is an instrument that helps us perform simple mathematical operations and a little algebra.
• The hard wooden beads are arranged in two parts namely the upper and the lower part, there were two beads in each rod in the upper part and five beads in each rod in the bottom parts.
• The abacus is a very old calculus tool, which has been adapted by a large number of cultures.
• By sliding the beads up and down, you can represent any number and perform arithmetic through a place value system.
• But it also has traces of being used during ancient times near east, China, Japan, and Europe.

Nevertheless, the abacus is still a trusted tool used by shopkeepers in Asia, and Chinatowns in North America, as well as by merchants, traders and clerks in parts of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Africa. The word abacus was derived from the Latin word ‘abakon’ or ‘abax.’ It is a powerful device for arithmetic calculations, which was introduced between 300 and 500 BC. At the time of inventing, it traveled through various countries. The suanpan, one of the innovative Chinese abacuses, which had 2/5 decks, but it had more difficulty; so, it was replaced by a Japanese Soroban abacus, which was improved by a popular mathematician Seki Kowa.

Careful observers will note that the metal rods, on which the beads slide, have a slight curvature to prevent the “counted” beads from accidently sliding back to the home-position. The design of the schoty is based on a pair of human hands (each row has ten beads, corresponding to ten fingers). Despite the abacus being ancient in its origin, it is still in use today. It has been a boon for the visually challenged as learning placement value, and other calculations can be done by touch. In many countries abacus is taught to early school goers as it has been seen that it helps subtends have a better understanding of numbers.