An Overview of Abacus History

As a student of math, you must be familiar with the facts, significance and history of Abacus. Though most of you know that abacus is basically a counting device that is capable of performing simple mathematic calculations, not many are aware of its historical background. You will be surprised to know that the history of abacus is actually one of the most controversial issues in the world, and most mathematicians have different views regarding it. As there is no such consensus explaining who invented abacus and when, it becomes tough for the common man to understand this puzzle. Before moving on to highlight the details of the abacus history, here are some interesting facts regarding this fantastic device:

As already mentioned before, there is much controversy and confusion regarding the meaning of abacus. It must be understood that though abacus and the counting board were used for counting in the earlier times, they are not actually the same thing. In the counting boards, the movement of beads or stones between the painted or carved lines helped in performing the mathematical calculations. In an abacus, the beads or stones actually slide along the wooden or metallic rod to perform these calculations. Abacus Maths

Many people confuse between abacus and the counting board. They associate abacus with the history of computers, identifying it as the first ever computer that was invented. However, this relationship does not have enough ground and support to back it up. Abacus only acted as a counting aid while the human brain performed all the mathematical calculations. However, this is different in case of a computer of calculator. You just need to feed data to the machine, and the calculations are performed by the device. Abacus Online

Though the numbers undoubtedly make the counting task much easier, the number system practice came into existence just a few decades ago. In the ancient times, human beings used their fingers to do most of the calculations. When people faced the challenge of counting very large numbers, abacus was introduced. Before the introduction of this device, people made use of several kinds of counting boards such as the Salamis tablet that was used by Babylonians in 300 BC.

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