Abacus facts for kids
An abacus is a very old tool used for math. It is still used in some parts of the world. Sometimes blind people will use an abacus, because they can feel the numbers easily. The most common abacuses work by moving beads on rods.
Abacuses can do addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and people can use them to find the square root of whole numbers. Expert, or very good, abacus users can sometimes do math quicker than basic calculators. There is a common Chinese abacus. This abacus is split into two kinds of basic rows, the top is for the "5"s, and the bottom is for the "ones". There are one or two beads in the top rows, and four or five beads in the bottom ones. For example, 8 is one bead on top and 3 below, because 5 + 3 = 8. Every column represents a different digit. The Abacus is really useful for math and is really fun to mess around with and just have fun with. Good to get for young children as toys or to help them learn.
Images for kids
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Calculating-Table by Gregor Reisch: Margarita Philosophica, 1503. The woodcut shows Arithmetica instructing an algorist and an abacist (inaccurately represented as Boethius and Pythagoras). There was keen competition between the two from the introduction of the Algebra into Europe in the 12th century until its triumph in the 16th.
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An early photograph of the Salamis Tablet, 1899. The original is marble and is held by the National Museum of Epigraphy, in Athens.
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A Chinese abacus (suanpan) (the number represented in the picture is 6,302,715,408)
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Copy of a Roman abacus
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Japanese soroban
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A yupana as used by the Incas.
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Russian schoty
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A twenty bead rekenrek
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Two binary abacuses constructed by Dr. Robert C. Good, Jr., made from two Chinese abacuses
See also
In Spanish: Ábaco para niños
