abacus

The term abacus It comes from the Latin abăcus. It is a painting built with wood that has 10 wires or ropes arranged in parallel. Each of these wires or cords, in turn, has 10 balls that can move. The abacus, therefore, is a instrument that helps to perform simple counting and calculations.

It was frequent that, in the school, the abacus is used to teach students the basic operations of arithmetic. In the Commerce, on the other hand, the abacus was used to make accounts.

Historians believe that the abacus was the first calculation instrument created by man. Although he does not know precisely how it originated, it is estimated that the first abaci were developed with rocks and lines that were drawn on the ground.

Specifically, for many the origin of this calculation tool would be in Asia, and more precisely in China. However, for other historians it would be found in Africa because it seems that in the Sahara checkerboards were already used both to carry out the necessary calculation in commercial transactions and to entertain themselves through what was a series of games traditional.

On America, the local populations that were settled in the territory before the European arrival used a type of abacus that was known as quipu, whose strings could be tied in different ways to count or even to transmit messages.

The invention of the calculator and computers caused the abacus to lose popularity, despite the fact that it is still used in several countries of the Asia.

In this sense, we can establish that currently all over the world the abacus is used by billiard players. And it is that this element or system is the one that they use to mark the points that each of the participants of a game add up.

Likewise, we cannot ignore the fact that this term in question has been joined to another series of words to give rise to a series of already generalized concepts. In this way, it is also common to hear about the natural abacus that comes to define the hand of any human being. This name is due to the fact that this part of the body is considered to be the oldest abacus as it is the one that has allowed calculations and mathematical operations since ancient times.

In the same way, there is also the reading abacus, which is a table used to teach children to read, or the Pythagorean abacus, which is used to carry out mathematical multiplication tasks.

The Abaco islands, for their part, are to the north of the Bahamas. It is an archipelago made up of islands Small Abacus, Great Abacus and an important quantity of islands and cays of little dimension. Its main economic support is the tourism. The Abaco Islands have about 13,000 inhabitants, being Marsh Harbor its most important city.

In the classical architectureFinally, an abacus was a kind of square table that was located on the equine and that crowned the capital, functioning as a seat for the architrave and protecting the decoration.