Q&A for How to Use an Abacus

Yes, an abacus is a great tool for teaching children basic math. The different senses involved in using an abacus, like sight and touch, can also help reinforce the lessons.

The type of abacus most commonly used today was invented in China around the 2nd century B.C. However, abacus-like devices are first attested from ancient Mesopotamia around 2700 B.C.!

Your abacus is a Chinese abacus. It has more calculative ability than a Japanese Soroban abacus. However, the essentials are effectively the same, so these instructions should still work.

As with the last answer to this question, your abacus is a Chinese abacus (called suan pan). It has five beads in the bottom row and two in the upper. This page shows instructions for the Japanese abacus (called soroban).

The number of columns can be whatever you want it to be. The important part is the number of beads per column.

Pehaps the Soroban one because it has less beads than a Suan Pan, and also it's the most familiar one.

No. Columns represent digits in a number. An abacus with one column can represent 0-9. Two columns can represent 0-99. Three can represent 0-999, and so on. The "maximum" number of columns would simply be however many you can have while still having an abacus that's small enough to be practical.

When you assign each column a place value, you don't have to put 1 on the right, then 10, etc. You could put the decimal point anywhere, so the columns could be 10, 1, .1, .01, etc. You can determine what each point stands for.

Yes, an abacus with more columns does not change the structure and methods shown here. The 17 columns mean 17 digits maximum can be calculated.

Let's say you are going to add 24 and 37. Firstly you are to add the ones first, so 4+7=11. Put down the ones digit which is 1 then put the other 1 above the tens digit which means you put 1 above 2 or 3 (depends to the number). Then add the tens digit which is 2+3=5 then at the same time, add 1 to the sum, so 5+1=6. The answer is 61.Here's the illustration: 1 37 +24 ----- 61

The dots were used to add money, every dot is used as a decimal.

Arrange the abacus in its order. For the Chinese Abacus (with two heaven [top] beads and five earth [bottom] beads), move one heaven bead to the bottom and one earth bead to the top (in the fourth rod from the right). It's the same with the Japanese Abacus or Soroban; there are just differences when counting over 5 numbers.

The more columns on an abacus, the larger the number you can represent. Example: if there were 10 columns, the highest number on a Japanese abacus would be 1 billion.

A ten looks like a one, but a column to the left of the ones column.

The abacus was invented to aid the calculation process. lt was one of the earliest calculating devices used to count large numbers and perform mathematical operations of addition and subtraction. The earliest forms of abacuses consisted of a wooden board with marked lines on which counters were moved. Today's abacus consists of a wooden frame with rods for sliding beads, these are still being used in many countries, such as China, Japan, and lindia, but now it is famous in all over world.

The origins of the abacus are not clear. It has been with us for thousands of years.