An Introduction to the Traditional Abacus of China and Japan - Comments

[YoungPhysicist]

Greg Bernhardt submitted a new blog post

An Introduction to the Traditional Abacus of China and Japan

Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

 

[YoungPhysicist]

Ya! My first insight! Can’t believe it!

 

[jedishrfu]

Great job! Congratulations!

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Nice first insight. Congratulations!

I learned abacus when I was of @YoungPhysicist's age. Though I have forgotten how to do the larger calculations (like 987×6598), while doing simple arithmetic, the technique of abacus now comes naturally. It was of great help in increasing concentration when I was learning.

 

[YoungPhysicist]

Nice first insight. Congratulations!

I learned abacus when I was of @YoungPhysicist's age. Though I have forgotten how to do the larger calculations (like 987×6598), while doing simple arithmetic, the technique of abacus now comes naturally. It was of great help in increasing concentration when I was learning.

Yeah, It really does, and also a great advantge on tests and calculations to calculate quickly(though almost everyone classmate of mine also take abacus courses with me, so the edge is not that obvious.

 

[YoungPhysicist]

(like 987×6598),

Well, we usually do that like the... ah, what is this method called in English?

      2 3
   x  4 6
   ----------
    1 3 8
    9 2
---------------
  1 0 5 8

(That looks a bit odd cause the spacing can't display properly after I submitted this post, I don't know why)
where we process it digit by digit, but from the left to the right, unlike the method I shown above, which is right to the left.
thus your peoblem will be done in 12 steps:

1. 9x6
2. 9x5
3. 9x8
4. 9x9
5. 8x6
6. 8x5
7. 8x8
8. 8x9
9. 7x6
10. 7x5
11. 7x8
12. 7x9

Just make sure the calculations are placed on the right column.

 

[jedishrfu]

I fixed the spacing using code tags which preserve the leading spaces and uses a mono spaced font.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Well, we usually do that like the... ah, what is this method called in English?

      2 3
   x  4 6
   ----------
    1 3 8
    9 2
---------------
  1 0 5 8

(That looks a bit odd cause the spacing can't display properly after I submitted this post, I don't know why)
where we process it digit by digit, but from the left to the right, unlike the method I shown above, which is right to the left.
thus your peoblem will be done in 12 steps:

1. 9x6
2. 9x5
3. 9x8
4. 9x9
5. 8x6
6. 8x5
7. 8x8
8. 8x9
9. 7x6
10. 7x5
11. 7x8
12. 7x9

Just make sure the calculations are placed on the right column.

Yes, it was done like that; I can recall some of it. But visualising so many columns was (and still is) a difficult job for me. I can correctly visualise upto three columns on the abacus board currently; and anything more than that generally leads to an error. Maybe you can blame the calculator to some extent