UNIDAD EDUCATIVA FISCOMISIONAL RIO UPANO

Name: Darly Villavicencio

Course: 10

The abacus
Who invented the abacus?
The design of the abacus as we know it, is attributed to a Roman philosopher named
Boethius who studied geometry with passion.

The abacus was born in Ancient China, but it has been shown that it has been used in
much of the world, this artifact usually made of wood and with several basins embedded
in parallel bars is used to perform simple mathematical calculations, such as subtraction,
addition and multiplication . The design of the book as we know it, is attributed to a
Roman philosopher named Boethius who studied geometry with passion. The elements
have been built in various materials since the time of its creation, some have been made
in bronze, wood and even marble, some are large and otherwise, others smaller and
even contain balls with specific data; in fact the idea of being able to place figures in the
balls to make larger transactions through Gilberto de Aurillac.
At present, abacuses are still used in Asian cultures and in some other countries as a
tool to teach children, the value and help that it provides to humanity is not denied and
proof of this is the fact that it makes one in the IBM laboratories, a molecular abacus was
built.

The abacus is considered to be the oldest instrument of calculation, adapted and

appreciated in different cultures. The time of origin of the abacus is undetermined. In
very early times, primitive man found materials to devise counting instruments. It is likely
that its start was on a flat surface and stones that moved on lines drawn with dust. Today
we tend to think that the origin of the abacus is in China, where the use of this instrument
is still remarkable, as in Japan. Other opinions maintain that the abacus was born in the
Sahara, where the predecessors of the current abacus were striped checkers in sand or
rocks, used both to perform arithmetic calculations and to play various traditional games
of intelligence, which in the Sahara and in The Canary Islands are very frequent. As
much of arithmetic was initially done with the abacus, this term has become synonymous
with arithmetic. This denomination is found in the text Liber Abaci, by the Italian
mathematician Leonardo de Pisa Fibbonacci, published in two editions of 1202 and
1228, which deals with the use of Indo-Arabic numbers. The copy that has seen the light
today corresponds to the 1228 edition.
Many cultures have used the abacus or the counting board, although in European cultures it disappeared
when other methods were available to make calculations, to such an extent that it was impossible to find a
trace of its technique of use.

The evidences of the use of the abacus arise in comments of the ancient Greek writers.
For example, Demosthenes (384-322 BC) wrote about the need to use stones to perform
calculations that are difficult to perform mentally. Another example is the calculation
methods found in the commentaries of Herdoto (484-425 a.), That speaking of the
Egyptians it said: "The Egyptians move their hand of right to left in the calculations, while
the Greeks do it of left to right".

The abacus table was used extensively in Brittany, just as it was abandoned by most
people. The book "The Ground of Arts" written by Robert Recorde (1510-1558) in 1542,
clearly shows the method of arithmetic with the abacus table. As the Indo-Arabic
numerals appeared in Europe, the use of the abacus table disappeared by complete, so
much so that when Napoleon's soldiers invaded Russia in 1812, they brought abacuses
as trophies or souvenirs of the country.
 UNIDAD EDUCATIVA FISCOMISIONAL RIO UPANO
In other parts of the world is China, the first evidence of the beginning of the Chinese
abacus that was discovered were ceramic beads made in the western Zhou1 Dynasty
with more than 3,000 years. Regarding the historical materials at hand, the book that
records the beginning of the calculation with an abacus is called Arithmetic Chronicle
written by Xu Yue in the east of the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), 2,000 years ago.
This indicates that the abacus had one count at the top and four at the bottom.

The abacuses of the modern form existed in the Song Dynasty (960d.C.-1279d.C.)
Which can be verified by some evidence material, for example, in a painting by Wang
Xhenpeng, this is the evidence that shows the extensive use among the people of the
south of the Song Dynasty.