What is meant by abacus

The abacus or counting frame is a simple calculating tool used for performing the operations such as addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, square root, and cube root. Abacus is developed around 2500 years ago. It is still used in some parts of the world.

Abacus is a frame consists of rods that are arranged vertically in a serial manner with beads on it. The most common abacus consists of 13 vertical rods arranged in series.

Movable beads are arranged in the upper deck and lower deck. The beads arranged in the upper deck are called upper beads whereas the beads arranged in the lower deck are called lower beads. A horizontal bar between the upper deck and lower deck divides them in to two parts.

Types of abacus

Abacus calculators are of various types. Chinese abacus or classical abacus and Japanese abacus or modern abacus are the most common types of abacus calculators.

 Chinese abacus or classical abacus

The chinese abacus or suanpan is considered as the earliest abacus. The term suanpan means calculating plate. The most common Chinese abacus or suanpan consists of 13 vertical rods arranged in series and movable beads on each vertical rod. In the lower deck, each vertical rod has five beads and in the upper deck, each vertical rod has two beads. The lower deck beads are also called earth beads or water beads and the upper deck beads are called heaven beads.

  

Each bead of an abacus frame has a definite value. Each bead in the lower deck has a value of one and each bead in the upper deck has a value of five. The beads are counted when the upper deck beads moved down towards the horizontal bar or when the lower deck beads moved up towards the horizontal bar.

The right most column in the Chinese abacus is the ones column; to the left side of one’s column is the tens column; to the left side of tens column is the hundreds column and so on.

The Chinese abacus is used for counting the numbers and for performing the simple operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square root, and cube root at high speed.

 Japanese abacus or modern abacus

The Japanese abacus or soroban is a calculating device developed in Japan. It is derived from the Chinese abacus.

The Japanese abacus consists of vertical rods arranged in series and the movable beads on each vertical rod. In the upper deck, each vertical rod consists of one bead and in the lower deck; each vertical rod consists of four beads. The vertical rods in the Japanese abacus will always odd (11, 13, 15, and so on) and never less than nine. The beads and the rods of the Japanese abacus are made from different types of materials such as wood and bamboo.

Each bead in the lower deck has a value of one and each bead in the upper deck has a value of five. The beads are counted when the lower deck beads are moved up towards the horizontal bar or when the upper deck beads are moved down towards the horizontal bar.

The right most column in the Japanese abacus in the ones column; to the left side of one’s column is the tens column; to the left side of tens column is the hundreds column and so on.

The Japanese abacus is used for counting the numbers and for performing the operations such as addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division at high speed.

The Japanese abacus or soroban is included as the part of lesson in the elementary schools because the decimal number system can be demonstrated visually. People who become expert in operating the abacus will automatically perform mental calculations without using any electronic calculators.

Two types of abacus were developed for the blind people to complete the math operations: one is the toggle type abacus where flip switches are used in place of beads. The other one is the Cranmer abacus that has beads, longer rods, and a leather back cover. Unlike the normal abacus, the Cranmer abacus beads do not slide over the rod, so that the beads do not move accidently.

The addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division operations performed by the Japanese abacus and Chinese abacus works in the same manner.

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Learning abacus makes you understand the concept of numbers and improves your mental arithmetic skills and basic arithmetic ability in a short period of time. Basically, math is limited to the area of the left brain responsible for logic languages. However, abacus arithmetic stimulates the visual, auditory and tactile without exception and actively helps the development of the right brain responsible for the artistic and sensory abilities as well as the left brain.

If you learn an abacus calculation, 9 things to be improved

​Calculation ability - Learning an abacus is a basic learning that goes into an outstanding math prodigy with excellent calculation ability
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Concentration - It is very good learning methods to kids who lack of concentration and have no motivation
  
Patience-Very good habit in all learning and behavioral development
  
Positiveness -Different ages and schools can be the friends and always responsible students
  
Brain development - Brain develops while you enjoy brain development
  
Agility -Since learning the abacus moving your fingers, you have agility.
  
Arithmetic operation, mental arithmetic - You know the correct answers in mathematics without calculator 
  
Good posture -Since learning with correct posture, the correct posture is also strong, durable body and mental health
  
Number sense - Because you have excellent sense in number, you will show a remarkable ability in mathematics and life calculations.

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