User:Zhang Yange

My name is Zhang Yange, 23 years old, I come from Zhengzhou, Henan Province. I graduated from Henan Normal University. Now I am a postgraduate student in Hunan Normal University, majoring in English translation. I have the TEM-8 certificate and the CATTI English Translation Certificate (Level 3). Hope to meet more friends.

Nov 6, 2024

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Nov 9, 2024

today I finished my translation homework.

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Nov 11, 2024

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Nov 23,2024

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Nov 24, 2024

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Nov 25, 2024

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Nov 26, 2024

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Nov 29, 2024

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Nov 30, 2024

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Dec 1, 2024

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Dec 10, 2024

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Dec 11，2024

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Dec 14, 2024

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Dec 15, 2024

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Dec 16, 2024

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Dec 30, 2024

Abucus

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Zhang Yange/Mia 202370081591

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Abstract

Abacus is an excellent traditional cultural treasure of the Chinese nation, and it is an advanced calculating tool that is constantly improved and perfected in the competition with a variety of computing tools and methods. On December 4, 2013, the Abacus was added to UNESCO’s list of intangible Cultural Heritage, further underlining its importance in global cultural diversity. Abacus has a long history in China, which is an invention of practical value and significance for the Chinese people, and has always been an important field of traditional Chinese mathematics research. Dr. Li Zhengdao (1972) once called the Chinese abacus “the oldest computer.” Nowadays, although the rapid development of modern science and technology, electronic computers are widely used, the abacus still cannot be replaced. In addition to China, many countries in Southeast Asia, as well as Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and other countries are still widely using abacus. (Xie Jingui, 2001)

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Origin

Abacus is a unique mathematical tool, which is a method of counting with abacus formula. First invented by the Chinese, abacus is the essence of traditional Chinese mathematics and algorithms. Xu Yue’s book The Memory of Numeracy in the Eastern Han Dynasty is the earliest book to record abacus, and the term abacus first appeared in the book. There are 14 methods of calculation recorded in the book, six of which can be classified as abacus, where the term “abacus” refers to ancient calculators, as opposed to today’s abacus calculations. (Liu Qiyuan, 1995)) When the ancient Chinese abacus exactly began is still in debate. In the painting Along the River at Qingming Festival by Zhang Zeduan (1085-1145), a famous painter in the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a pattern shaped like an abacus. Yuan Dynasty painter Wang Zhenpeng has an abacus similar to the modern abacus in his Qiankunyidan Map (1310). Liu Yin (1248-1293) of the Yuan Dynasty wrote a five-character quatrains called Abacus Poems which was in the Collected Works of Mr. Retreat (1279). These historical materials show that in the Song and Yuan dynasties, abacus had been popularized to a certain extent, and there was a beaded abacus with a frame, a beam and a file basically the same as in modern times. As for the appearance of the Abacus in the West, Keith F. Sugden, in A History of the Abacus (1981), suggested that the abacus originated in Greece in the 7th century BC, but the exact date remains to be explored. (Han Xiaoju, 2016)

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Development

Chinese traditional abacus has a long developing history. It can be divided into three historical stages: Chou Suan calculation, abacus calculation and abacus-based mental calculation. Let's learn each of these three stages.

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Stage one: Chou Suan calculation

The Chou Suan calculation was invented by the Chinese working people in the practice of production and labor. according to China’s famous abacus scientist Hua Yinchun’ research: “The method of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing the numbers by arranging sticks into chips is called “Chou Suan calculation”. ( Liu Qiyuan, 1995) As the predecessor of the abucus calculation, the calculation chip is made of narrow bamboo pieces or sticks, and there are two ways to express the calculation chip: the vertical and the horizontal. When it is needed to represent “0”, there is an empty digit. The following is the pictures. The calculation stick is a tool invented by the ancient Chinese people, and its calculation method is called Chou Suan calculation. Chou Suan is one of the splendid cultures created by the Chinese nation. Dr. Joseph Needham (1954), a British expert on science and technology, pointed out in his History of Science and Technology in China that “the inventions and discoveries of ancient China had surpassed those of the European contemporaries, especially before the 15th century.” (Joseph Needham, 1978)

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Stage two: Abucus calculation

The evolution of Chinese ancient mathematics from Chou Suan to abacus was about in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, China’s capitalist mode of production began to sprout, with the development of social economy, commercial practical arithmetic became prosperous, thus the abacus calculation was widely promoted, and gradually replaced the calculation. Chinese traditional mathematics thus entered a new period centered on the abacus calculation. The earliest existing abacus books are the Pan Abacus Method (1573) and Mathematical Passage (1578), the most important contribution of these two books is the change from the traditional Chinese mathematical Chou Suan formula to the abacus formula. The former recorded the formula of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing abacus and the later introduced the nine-nine general calculation song. The culmination of the abacus algorithm was Cheng Dawei’s work, The Collection of abucus Algorithms (1592), which detailed the abacus system and its use.

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Stage three: abucus-based mental calculation

With the development and prosperity of the socialist economy with Chinese characteristics, calculation has become more important. In order to meet the needs of The Times, the “three calculations and abacus mental calculation” created in China came into being, and the abacus developed into the abacus-based mental calculation. The so-called “three calculations” are three calculation methods: written calculation, abacus calculation and oral calculation. And the oral calculation, is the abacus-based mental calculation. The “abacus-based mental calculation” developed on the basis of “three calculations” is to sublimate the abacus to brain calculation on the basis of skilled abacus calculation, that is, to sublimate the abacus to an advanced stage.

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Overseas Development

Since the introduction of abacus from China to Japan in Ming Dynasty, it has been valued and welcomed by different sectors in Japan. The earliest abacus in Japan was the Ming abacus introduced from China, which was the same as the Chinese abacus, with two beads on the top and five beads on the bottom, but the common abacus in Japan was one bead on the top and five beads on the bottom. Japan attached great importance to abacus education, and “reading, writing, and abacus calculation” became the basic knowledge and skills necessary for Japanese in the 17th century. In the 19th year of Showa (1944), Japan began to hold a national abacus ability test. In Showa 36 (1961), Japan began to hold international abacus competitions, and gradually increased exchanges with other countries. (Xie Jingui, 2001)

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The structure and instruction of the abacus

The abacus usually consists of a rectangular wooden or plastic frame with a beam in the middle of the abacus that divides the abacus into upper and lower parts. The upper part of the beam is called the “upper bead” and the lower part is called the “lower bead”. There are usually two beads on the top of the beam, with each bead representing the value 5. There are usually five beads under the beam, with each lower bead representing the value 1. Each column of the abacus consists of a rod representing a digit, from right to left is a digit, tens, hundreds, thousands and etc, each digit has a corresponding upper and lower bead. Some abacus have a liquidator at one end of the beam for quickly returning the beads to their original state. (Li Yan, 1984) With the abacus you can do all kinds of operations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and so on. We're going to focus here on addition. To perform addition operations on an abacus, first zero the abacus, place the addition on the abacus, add the addition digit by digit, and move the lower bead of the corresponding digit up one bead for each additional 1. For each increase of 5, the top bead of the corresponding digit is moved up by one.

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Cultural values of the abucus

A. Literary Works . During the reign of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty (1506-1521 AD), more and more abacus appeared in literary works. In the 36th round of The Story of The Stone, when writing Baoyu, “calculation” was used. The appearance of words related to abacus such as “arrangement” also shows that abacus presents diversification in literary language and literary meaning, making abacus more deeply involved in literary works. (Chen Ling, 2013)

B. Folk traditions. Abucus is deeply rooted in Chinese folk culture. There are many folk cultures related to the abacus, such as riddles, allegorical sayings, common sayings and couplets. For example, “no matter three seven 21”, “one back two sixty-five”, “wishful calculation”, “little ninety-nine”, etc. All of these show that the expressions closely related to the abacus has become a common language.

C. Drawing. The abacus also appeared in elegant paintings. Mr. Qi Baishi, a famous painter, used an abacus as the main layout and painted a work called “Wealth Map” as his home collection, which is now stored in Beijing Painting Academy.

D. Jewelry. Chinese people who have special feelings for abacus also make them into jewelry and other ornaments. There are bracelets, necklaces, rings, earrings and others. The exquisite craftsmanship of abacus jewelry is loved by the public, which indicates that the appearance of the abacus has been accepted by the public.

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Cultural Significance of the Abucus

A. A symbol of wealth. Since ancient times, the abacus has been used to sum up money, so it has the meaning of attracting money, prosperous wealth, and the abacus is regarded as a symbol of wealth and prosperity. (Chen Ling, 2013)

B. Good luck to ward off evil spirits. In ancient times, children wore necklaces with abacus patterns, which had the meaning of warding off evil. In Anhui province, the silver abacus lock is called the “long life lock”, so it has the meaning of safety.

C. A symbol of wisdom. In daily life, people often hear the metaphors of “golden abacus” and “iron abacus”, which describe the wisdom of “All money in, no money out”.

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Reflection

With the popularity of electronic products such as computers and mobile phones, people’s demand for abacus has gradually decreased, and some young people even know nothing about abacus calculation, which brings challenges to the inheritance of abacus. Therefore, we need to think about how to inherit and protect the abacus.

In terms of technology inheritance, abacus calculation looks simple, but there are many ways to calculate. Although abacus calculation and abucus-based mental arithmetic has a certain application in the field of education, its popularization and promotion in the whole society are not enough, so publicity and education of abucus need to be strengthened. At the same time, schools and society can hold various abacus competitions and practical activities to stimulate students’ interest and enthusiasm.

In terms of cultural inheritance, abacus actually originated in China and then spread to Japan and other countries, but now China pays less attention to it, while Japan is vigorously promoting and developing abacus. As a student, we should assume the responsibility of inheriting and spreading the abacus culture.

Personally, I would like to talk about why I chose abacus as the topic of my final paper. I was born in 2001, but China’s education administration removed the abacus from textbooks in 2000, resulting in some students who lack understanding and learning about the abacus, and I am one of the students who missed learning the abacus. In August 2024, during the summer holiday, I was teaching math to my little sister , and there was a chapter on abacus in her math textbook. However, embarrassingly, I don’t understand it at all, let alone teach my sister. So I started to learn the simple abacus arithmetic by myself, and then I can teach her. In this process, I realized the charm of abacus, a small abacus can calculate different complex problems!

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Terms and expressions Abucus calculation珠算

Chou Suan calculation with sticks筹算

Abucus-based mental calculation珠算式心算

Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division加减乘除

Vertical formula纵式

Horizontal formula横式

Written calculation, Oral calculation, Mental calculation三算

The upper bead上珠

The lower bead下珠

Carry进位

Borrow借位

Gold abacus金算盘

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Questions

1. What is the earliest book to record abacus?

2. How many stages did the abacus experience?

3. Who comprehensively summarized the abacus calculation method?

4. What is the difference between the Japanese abacus and the Chinese abacus?

5. What is the cultural significance of the abacus?

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Answers

1. Xu Yue’s book called Mathematical memorization.

2.There are stages, they are Chou Suan stage, Abucus stage and Abucus-based mental calculation stage.

3.Mr. Cheng Dawei.

4. the Chinese abacus was with two beads on the top and five beads on the bottom, but the common abacus in Japan was one bead on the top and five beads on the bottom.

5. A symbol of wealth, Good luck to ward off evil spirits, A symbol of wisdom.

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Reference

[1] Keith F. Sugden. A History of the Abacus [J]. The Accounting Historians Journal, 1981(02).

[2] (Japan) LingMuJiuNan. A brief history of the development of Japanese abacus [J]. Abucus, 1996, (6).

[3] Joseph Needham. History of science and technology in China [J]. Beijing: Science Press, 1978,(3): 165.

[4] Xu Yue. Mathematical memorization [M]. Beijing: Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1980.

[5] Chen Ling. A study of Abacus culture in ancient China and the East Asian world [J]. Journal of Xiamen University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 2013, (05):46-53.

[6] Han Xiaoju. A comparative study of Chinese and Western abacus [D]. Hebei University, 2016.

[7] Hua Yin Chun. Chinese abacus history manuscript [M]. Beijing: China Financial and Economic Press, 1987.

[8] Li Yan. History of Chinese mathematics [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Bookstore, 1984: 169.

[9] Liu Qiyuan. Brief discussion of the origin and application of abacus [J]. Guizhou Education, 1995, (10): 41-43.

[10] Liu Yin. Mr. Jing Xiu’s Collection [M]. A series of four books: 66.

[11] Xie Jingui. The origin and development of abacus [J]. Journal of Tibet University for Nationalities (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 2001, (04): 91-94.

[12] Xu Yilin. Anthology of Japanese abacus [M]. Beijing: BeijingScience Press, 2008: 53-55.

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AI Statement

I hereby guarantee that I have not used the help of AI to write my final paper in this course.