Welcome to You Ask Andy

Dan Denton, age ll, of Gastonia, N

What is an abacus?

Logarithms and fractions equations and decimals, the calculus and the isoceles triangle are terms tossed around by the math student  The gifted mathematician finds the bare facts of his subject exciting in themselves and his specialized understanding is a wonder to behold  The average fellow, however, often finds the facts and terms of mathematics dull and dry‑as‑dust  This is the time to remember that modern mathematics took time to grow  Now and then a thoughtful person solved what often seemed to by a small problem  The solution led to another problem and gradually a great science unfolded  Math is the basic tool for all scientific study, for solving present problems and using these solutions to open the doors to new problems 

The fascinating challenge of mathematics began even before the dawn of written history  The first shepherds tallied their sheep with notches on a stick  Early farmers figured their bags of wheat with knots in a string and the early time‑keepers measured the day with shadow‑sticks  All sorts of devices were invented to count, to measure and to figure  We do not know the ingenious inventors, but they were the ancestors of our complex science of mathematics  T o grasp this science, most of us have to start with its early beginnings 

One of the early geniuses invented the abacus, a gadget for adding and subtracting  Basically, it is a square or oblong wooden frame around a few horizontal crossbars  Sometimes the bars are vertical and sometimes an abacus has both vertical and horizontal crossbars  In any case, each bar is strung with a number of movable balls or beads. 

The adding and subtracting are done by giving different values to the balls on each crossbar 

For example, each ball on the first bar may represent a unit of one, each ball on the second bar a unit of ton and each ball on the third bar a unit of a hundred  You do not need Andy to explain how such a device can be used to tot up the bushels of wheat in a warehouse without pencil and paper and without straining the memory banks in the old noggin 

The abacus was used by the Greeks and the Romans, the Hindus and the ancient Chinese  Several geniuses may have discovered it, or the idea may have been borrowed from one inventor and handed around the world  Some students claim that it helps them got started along the road to understanding modern mathematics with all its exciting experiences and opportunities 

The wonderful gadget has kept pace with the times and certain models are far more complex than the simple counting frame  Not so long ago, a Japanese student used an up‑to‑date abacus in a contest with an electronic computer  Both reached the correct solution, but the man with the abacus reached it first  It might be fun to try a few tricks with one of these old‑time adding machines.

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