Two Abacuses
Sun, 2010-02-07 16:44 — walker
Donor: Anonymous
Counting tool that was first used in China in the 14th century. The top portion of the abacus (the one with fewer beads) is known as heaven, while the bottom portion is known as earth. The beads are counted when they are towards the horizontal beam in the center. The heaven beads are worth five, while the earth beads are worth one. From left to right, the bead values increase by a decimal place (5, 50, 500, 5000, and so on). These basic abacuses can also be used for addition and subtraction.
The larger abacus is a traditional Chinese abacus. The smaller one is a Japanese abacus, which was derived from the Chinese version. There methods of operation are virtually identical.
