Why Abacus

From the earliest known times, humankind has always been on stride on the path of discovery from the invention of fire to the invention of electricity, from the invention of wheel to the development of railway tracks for the railway carriages it has always been an uneven and long eternal time for human beings to achieve such progress. This has filled the path of the flourishment of human civilization. Similarly, human beings have made certain development in their field of study and literature – such as upgrading subjects like astronomy, logic, philosophy, medicine, and arithmetic humans have found the implementation of arithmetic in every sphere of daily life. From visiting the market places in one hand and keeling calculation of daily expenses, on the other hand keeping a track of the number of days in years by following the arithmetical base Gregorian calendar. The simplest way to learn arithmetic is by following the system of an abacus. A question or doubt may arise in your mind that why abacus is declared or chosen as the simplest method to learn arithmetic? – this is because it simply teaches the initial knowledge of mathematics which are – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Thus, an abacus is taught in the primary classes of our school life. Similarly, this why abacus was also used in early civilizations in their primitive form.

Chinese abacus: -Also known as SUAN pān was used for basic mathematical or arithmetical operations. This is one of the earliest known abacuses.

Centuries after it was used in Europe, Russia and the ancient near East. Abacus (which is also known as the counting frame) was also found in the medieval period and was known as the Liber abaci or abacus. While on the other hand abacus of the Hindu-Arabic numeric system is quite important concerning the arithmetic numeral system in the international context as the number ‘0’ originated from it. Hence this is why abacus has been used all over the indifferent civilizations over centuries for its highly simplified methods of calculation.

Other than human beings who are physically fit there are specially designed abacuses for the physically and visually impaired people. A different kind of abacus designed by a person with the name of Tim Cranmer which is also known as the Cranmer abacus is used by the persons who are visually challenged. The abacus contains a soft fabric on its beads, which enables a blind person to manipulate the arithmetical processes needed for the calculations.

There is another kind of abacus which demonstrates the arithmetical processes and the calculations which the computers undergo when a data is being entered into it, it is known as a binary abacus. It follows the same binary system which is used by the computers for calculations. The binary system has two basic numbers through which it performs the mathematical operations – those are 0, 1. The binary system also follows the devices of the operations- ‘0’ for ‘off’ and ‘1’ for ‘on’. For these simplified versions, this is why the abacus has been used in understanding the basic functions of different modern machines.

Thus, in a nutshell, we can state that the solution to the question of ” why abacus is used for calculations?” – the answer would undoubtedly be the simplicity it brings to the solving of the calculations.