What Is the Importance of Abacus Method?
What Is the Importance of Abacus Method? Abacus is a calculating device, which takes the form of rows of beads strung on wires and set in a frame. When counting in decimals, the top row stands for units, the next row for tens, the next for hundreds, and so on. By moving the beads from side to side, it is possible to add and subtract with surprising speed.
The abacus was invented several thousand years ago, and was very widely used until recent centuries. In parts of the east it is still used for reckoning by traders. This system is being propagated in China, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan. Mental calculation is said to improve mental capability, increases speed of response, memory power, and concentration power.
Many veteran and prolific abacus users in China, Japan, South Korea, and others who use the abacus daily, naturally tend to not use the abacus anymore but perform calculations by visualizing the abacus. This was verified when the right brain measured heightened EEG activity when calculating and compared with non-veterans who were using the abacus to perform calculations.
The standard abacus can be used to perform addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication; the abacus can also be used to extract square-roots and cubic roots. Around the world, abacuses have been used in pre-schools and elementary schools as an aid in teaching the numeral system and arithmetic.