ABACUS

What is an Abacus?

History of Abacus:

Abacus is a Latin word that has its origins in the Greek words abax or abakon (meaning “table” or “tablet”) which in turn, possibly originated from the Semitic word abq, meaning “sand” 1.

Abacus or 算 盘 (suan4 pan2) in Chinese was a widely used computing machine before the invention of modern computers. The mathematics of abacus is called 珠算 (zhu1 suan4) in Chinese. Although it has been used for thousands of years in businesses all around the world, abacus is losing to computers as a practical computation tool.

Then why should we learn abacus? Chances are you won’t always have a calculator with you when you go shopping. But you’ll still need to be able to add, subtract, multiply or divide. So it’s important to know and feel confident about doing sums in your mind.

There are various forms of abacus, but the principles are all the same.