#CHINESE ABACUS IN CLOTH BOX HOW TO#

There is one bead in the lower deck in the tens place, so the digit in the tens column is 1. The abacus on the left shows the number 12. Look at the following simple calculation (12 + 7 = 19) using a suanpan.

To subtract numbers, beads are moved back to the edges of the frame. To add numbers on the abacus, beads are moved toward the middle. If one bead from the upper deck and three beads from the lower deck in the ones column have been moved to the middle, this equals 8, since the bead from the upper deck is worth 5. For example, if three beads from the lower deck in the ones column have been moved toward the middle, the abacus shows the number 3. The beads are moved toward the middle beam to show different numbers. Each column can be thought of in terms of place value and the total of the beads in each column as the digit for that place value. The abacus can then be read across just as if you were reading a number. The next column to the left is the tens column, and so on. The column farthest to the right is the ones column. Each of the two beads in the ones column in the top deck is worth 5, and each bead in the lower deck is worth 1. The upper deck has two beads in each column, and the lower deck has five beads in each column. The suanpan consists of two decks, an upper and a lower, separated by a divider.

#CHINESE ABACUS IN CLOTH BOX HOW TO#

In China, the abacus is called a 'suanpan.' Little is known about its early use, but rules on how to use it appeared in the thirteenth century. However, they resemble the Chinese and Japanese abacuses, suggesting that the use of the abacus spread from Greece and Rome to China, and then to Japan and Russia. Since such a small number of these have been found, they probably were not widely used. 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 are very small, fitting in the palm of your hand. A few hand abacuses from this time have been found. There is evidence that people were using abacuses in ancient Rome (753 b.c.e.

Drawings of people using counting boards have been found dating back to the same time period. It was used by the Babylonians around 300 b.c.e. It was found on the island of Salamis, a Greek island, in 1899. The oldest counting board that has been found is called the Salamis Tablet. Since counting boards were often made from materials that deteriorated over time, few of them have been found. These evolved into actual tables with grooves in them to move the counters.

The earliest counting tables or boards may simply have been lines drawn in the sand. Often they were simply boards or tables on which pebbles or stones could be moved to show addition or subtraction. It is taken from the Greek word abax, which means 'flat surface.' The predecessors to the abacus -counting boards - were just that: flat surfaces. Addition and subtraction can easily be performed by moving beads along the wires of the abacus. Each bead represents a number, usually 1 or 5, and can be moved along the rods. Each rod represents a different place value -ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on. An abacus consists of a wooden frame, rods, and beads. It has endured over time and is still in use in some countries. The abacus is the most ancient calculating device known.

Chinese abacus in cloth box