what is abacus?

Answer 1

An early mechanical calculator whose design has evolved through the centuries, with two styles in use today. Both the Chinese and the Japanese styles consist of a frame with a crossbeam. They may be made from many different materials, such as wood or brass. Rods or wires carrying sliding beads extend vertically through the crossbeam. The Chinese suan pan has two beads above the beam on each rod and five beads below. Each rod of the Japanese soroban carries one bead above and four below.

In working with whole numbers, the rightmost rod represents the ones position, with each rod to the left representing the tens, hundreds, thousands, and so forth, respectively. The beads below the crossbeam represent one of that rod's units (that is, a one, a ten, a hundred, and so forth), and those above represent five. Beads are moved from the outer position toward the crossbeam when used to represent a number.

The abacus, in contrast to the electronic calculator, is simply an aid to mental computation. A well-developed facility with numbers is required in order to use it effectively. For this reason, it is the calculator of choice for teachers in the Far East. The advent of the electronic calculator, while a boon to the scientific community, may have little impact on shop owners who are comfortable with the abacus.-

Answer 2

Abacus Answers

Answer 3

The standard abacus can be used to perform addition, subtraction, division and multiplication; the abacus can also be used to extract square-roots and cubic roots.

The abacus is typically constructed of various types of hardwoods and comes in varying sizes. The frame of the abacus has a series of vertical rods on which a number of wooden beads are allowed to slide freely. A horizontal beam separates the frame into two sections, known as the upper deck and the lower deck.

Answer 4

an abacus is an ancient mathamatical calculator.

When you were a child, did you have a toy that resembled a few parallel bars attached by a stand of some sort, and on each bar there were a series of beads - usually different colours? that's an abacus.

They are still used in the far east by people who work in markets. If you know how to use one, they are capable of calculating very complex mathamatical equations.

Answer 5

An abacus is a device used for addition and subtraction, and the related operations of multiplication and division. It does not require the use of pen and paper, and it's good for any base number system. There are two basic forms for the abacus: a specially marked flat surface used with counters (counting table), or a frame with beads strung on wires (bead frame).

Check out the following comprehensive link on abacus

Answer 6

It is a calculator which is used by Chinese about 2000 years ago. In Hong Kong, a lot of Chinese medicine shop alse use abacus for calclating the fee of the medicine.

Answer 7

an abacus is an ancient chinese tool used in dealing with numbers.

it is believed to be the forerunner of the computer history..

Answer 8

Its an old computer by the Chinese, It was a bunch of bars with beads that you move back and forth, I suck at describing

Answer 9

its an old version calculator
it is compose of beads and string
there are levels of beads
each level bead represents a different number size
0000------........100's
0000------........10's
0000------.........1's
etc
the 0's in that pic represents the beads and the - is the string.
you move the bead to the right to count
so
000-----0....1
00-----00....2
00-----00....2
this is 122

here is a pic
http://www.gummylump.com/static/images/wooden-abacus.jpg

Answer 10

a math tool used before calculators. it had metal rods with wooden beads on them and you used it to count and do math with. i never used one, but had seen them. showing my age... :)
going back to wind up my phonograph...