China Travel Deals, China Tourist, China Vacation, Chinese Travel

Chinese abacus The abacus is an abacus (serving tool to calculate) formed of an oblong setting provided with stems on which slide of the balls.

The abacus is bound to the system of decimal numeration:  every ball represents, according to the stem on which it is, an unit, about ten, about hundred. Some abacuses include the special balls being worth 5 units, 5 score, 5 hundreds…

The abacuses serve to do some calculations:  additions, subtractions, multiplications, divisions. In practiced hands, it is however possible to achieve other operations of type calculations of umpteenth roots or conversion in different bases.

One distinguishes several types of it:

    * the Chinese abacus or suan flap. He is used in China since more of 8 centuries. One finds an illustration of it on a work dating the XIIe century. On every stem, one finds 5 balls representing an unit and 2 balls representing 5 units, separated by a central rod.
    * the Japanese abacus or soroban. He appears to Japan toward the XIVe century probably imported from China. He lost progressively, in relation to the Chinese abacus, two balls (a ball of value 1 and a ball of value 5). * the Russian abacus or stchoty (…..), also used in some Iranian regions under the name of choreb and in Turkey under the name of coulba is formed of stems carrying 10 balls of value 1 * the French abacus-meter used in the French schools until the XVIIIe century, variant likely of the Russian instrument.

It is surprising to notice, to the era of the electronic calculator, the big importance that this instrument of calculation keeps in all the Asia. It is not rare to see Russian or Asian tradesmen to do a calculation with the help of a calculator and to verify the result of it with the help of the abacus. In practiced hands, this one is of a dangerous efficiency. In 1945, a match opposing a Japanese accountant provided with a soroban and an electric calculator operator (Matsuzaki against Woods) was won by the soroban by a score of 4 to 1.
Reading of a number

Every column represents while leaving from the right, the units, the score, the hundreds etc. The 5 balls below the rod are worth each 1 and the 2 balls situated the rod above are worth each 5.