Chapter 8 Section 3 Abacus

From the middle of the Tang Dynasty to the Song and Yuan Dynasties, people continued to improve their calculations and created many multiplication and division algorithms and formulas (see the next section).This creates a new contradiction: it is very fast to recite formulas with the mouth, but it is very slow to calculate with the hands, and it is not easy to handle.The creation of new calculation tools became an urgent need, and the abacus came into being. The abacus calculation in "Shu Shu Ji Yi" does not use beads, and there is no formula. In fact, it is not as convenient as calculation.When the abacus used today was produced, there have been many debates in the academic circles since the early Qing Dynasty.Some people think that abacus beads were unearthed in the Northern Song Dynasty, and there is an abacus on the counter of Zhao's medicine shop in "A Picture of Shanghe During the Qingming Festival".Some people also think that there is a problem with the unearthed soil layer of the abacus. On the counter of the Zhao family is a coin board, not an abacus. They insist that the abacus was produced at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.We believe that the abacus, which uses formulas and replaces counting chips as the main calculation tool, should be produced after the middle of the Yuan Dynasty.Abacus has played a huge role in the production and life of people in China, East Asia and Southeast Asia.