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An abacus (pl. abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a hand-operated calculating tool which was used from ancient times in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, until the adoption of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. [1] An abacus consists of a two-dimensional array of slidable beads (or similar objects). In their ...
Of prime importance, he specifically notes the formats of the semuncia, sicilicus and sextula as used on the Roman bronze abacus, "auf dem chernan abacus". The semuncia is the symbol resembling a capital "S", but he also includes the symbol that resembles a numeral three with horizontal line at the top, the whole rotated 180 degrees.
By the time that the numerical impressions provided insight into ancient numbers, the Sumerians had already developed a complex arithmetic. [24] Computations were likely performed either with tokens or by means of an abacus or counting board. [25] [26]
Abacus of the Rampurva capital from the time of Emperor Ashoka, 3rd century BCE, India. In śilpaśāstra, the ancient Indian science of sculpture, the abacus is commonly termed as phalaka (or phalakā). [6] It consists of a flat plate and forms part of the standard pillar . The phalaka should be constructed below the potikā ("bracket"). It is ...
Objects, such as stones, were added for counting and then columns for place-valued arithmetic. The demarcation between an abax and an abacus seems to be poorly defined in history; [3] moreover, modern definitions of the word abacus universally describe it as a frame with rods and beads [4] and, in general, do not include the definition of "sand ...
The people of that time relied on primitive accounting methods to record the growth of crops and herds. Because there was a natural season to farming and herding, it was easy to count and determine if a surplus had been gained after the crops had been harvested or the young animals weaned.
The book describes methods of doing calculations without aid of an abacus, and as Ore (1948) confirms, for centuries after its publication the algorismists (followers of the style of calculation demonstrated in Liber Abaci) remained in conflict with the abacists (traditionalists who continued to use the abacus in conjunction with Roman numerals).
Once written zero came into play, the rod numerals had become independent, and their use indeed outlives the counting rods, after its replacement by abacus. One variation of horizontal rod numerals, the Suzhou numerals is still in use for book-keeping and in herbal medicine prescription in Chinatowns in some parts of the world.