Where did the abacus first originate?

China is the hometown of abacus. Today, computers have been widely used. The ancient abacus has not been abandoned, but it is in the ascendant in many countries because of its convenience and accuracy. Therefore, people often compare the invention of abacus with four great inventions of ancient china, and abacus is also a simple calculation tool invented by Han people. There is an abacus in Zhao Taicheng's medicine cabinet in the famous painting "The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" in the Northern Song Dynasty. Because of its convenient and quick operation, abacus has been widely used by Han people for thousands of years, and even the most advanced modern electronic calculator can not completely replace abacus. The origin of abacus can be traced back to 600 BC. It is said that there was a "calculation board" in China at that time. The ancients strung 10 abacus beads into a group, arranged them in groups, put them in boxes, and then quickly set aside the abacus beads for calculation. It is impossible to investigate who invented the abacus. But its use should be very early. Xu Yue, a mathematician at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote in "The Legacy of Mathematical Techniques": "The abacus is controlled by four seasons, and the latitude and longitude are three talents." In the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Zhen Luan wrote a cloud: "The stereotyped writing is divided into three parts, each with five beads. The upper bead is different from the lower four beads. There are five upper beads with different colors and one lower four beads. " There was an abacus in the Han dynasty, but its shape has changed in recent days. But as in modern times, one bead above the center beam is five, and each bead below the center beam is one. According to Xu Yue, his teacher, Liu Hong, once asked the Taoist Tianmu, who explained four calculation methods of 14, one of which is abacus, which shows that abacus appeared at the latest in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Some historians believe that the name of abacus first appeared in the Collected Works of Mr. Jing Xiu written by Liu Yin in Yuan Dynasty (1249-1293). This abacus is also mentioned in Yuan Qu Xuan, Anonymous and Pang Jushi's Wrong Debt in His Next Life. There is a saying in the play: "Idle hands, use abacus and dial my age." In AD 1 year, in 274, Yang Hui recorded the nine-return division of abacus in his book Multiplication and Division, and Zhu Shijie recorded the nine-return division of abacus in his book Arithmetic Enlightenment in 1299. In A.D. 1450, Jason Wu described the usage of the abacus in detail in Chapter 9 Analogy Algorithm, and Zhang Zerui drew an abacus in The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. Visible, as early as the Northern Song Dynasty or before, abacus was widely used in China. China's abacus evolved from the ancient "calculation". "Calculation" is to use a bamboo stick as a bargaining chip. The multiplication and division method was improved at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and the formula for calculating division was produced in the Song Dynasty. /kloc-In the middle of the 5th century, Luban Mu Jing had a standard for making abacus. Due to the popularity of abacus, books on abacus came into being. The most popular book of abacus calculation is the Arithmetic Unified Sect compiled by Cheng Dawei in Ming Dynasty on 1593. Arithmetic Unity is a book based on the application of abacus. The book *** 17 contains 595 application problems, most of which are taken from other calculators, but all calculations are done with abacus. The book contains abacus schema and abacus formula, and gives examples to illustrate how to calculate on abacus according to the formula. Among them, the square root and the square root algorithm were first proposed by Cheng Dawei. At the end of the book, the appendix "The Origin of Mathematical Classics" records 5 1 mathematical titles since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, most of which have been lost, and this appendix has become a valuable mathematical historical material. Because the abacus formula is easy to remember and use, it is widely used in China, and also spread to Japan, Korea, India, the United States, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions. The appearance of abacus, known as a major reform of calculators in human history, still plays its unique role today with the popularization of electronic calculators. With the use of abacus, people have summed up many formulas to make the calculation faster. This method of calculating with abacus is called abacus. By the Ming Dynasty, abacus was quite popular, and many books about abacus were published. Among them, Cheng Dawei (1533 ~ 1606)' s Introduction to Arithmetic (1592) has the greatest influence. China, the mystery of origin, the hometown of abacus. Today, computers have been widely used. The ancient abacus has not been abandoned, but it is in the ascendant in many countries because of its convenience and accuracy. Therefore, people often compare the invention of the abacus with four great inventions of ancient china, and think that the abacus is also a great contribution of the Chinese nation to mankind. However, when did China start to have an abacus? Since the Qing dynasty, many mathematicians have studied this problem, and Japanese scholars have also invested a lot of energy. Due to the lack of sufficient evidence, the origin of abacus is still controversial. To sum up, there are three main theories. First, it was advocated by Mei, a mathematician in the Qing Dynasty during the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The basis is that Xu Yue, a mathematician in the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote a book "Numerology Legacy", which recorded 14 algorithms, and the thirteenth algorithm was called "abacus calculation", and said: "abacus calculation, control of four seasons, latitude and longitude three talents." Later, Zhen Luan, a mathematician in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, commented on this passage: "Stereotyped writing is divided into three points, the upper and lower points are the pearl of stopping traveling, and the middle point is positioning. There are five beads in each position, and the upper bead is different from the lower four beads. There are five beads of different colors on the top and one on the bottom. To the next four beads, so the cloud' controls the four seasons'. Its beads swim between the three parties, so the cloud' latitude and longitude three talents' is also. " These characters are considered to be the earliest records of abacus calculation. At that time, the abacus in the five beads was not an abacus that pierced the beads-there were no holes (no files) in the beads, which were called bead plates. At that time, beads painted with different colors were placed on a wooden board engraved with rows of longitudinal arc grooves. However, some scholars believe that the abacus described in this book is at best a counting tool or a simple calculation board that can only be added and subtracted, which is different from the abacus that appeared later. Second, the Yuan and Ming Dynasties advocated by Qing Dynasty scholar Qian Dating, that is, abacus appeared in the middle of the Yuan Dynasty and was widely used in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties. In the Yuan Dynasty, Tao's Record of Dropping Out of Farming in the South Village, Volume 29, Well Beads, quoted a proverb at that time to describe slaves, saying, "Anyone who takes a servant beats his pearls when he first comes, and does not speak automatically; Say abacus beads for a while, and move as soon as you say it; For a long time, the Buddha's top bead, the word all day long, although it can't be moved. " Later generations called this "three-bead drama language." Comparing a veteran handmaiden to an abacus bead can be stirred, which shows that abacus was very popular at that time. At the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, there was a five-character quatrain named Abacus in Liu Yin's Collected Works of Mr. Mu Jing: "Don't stop singing the song of bread unless you dance with Weng Shang." How difficult is financing? "This is also the obvious evidence that the abacus appeared in the Yuan Dynasty. As for the Ming Dynasty, Luban Mu Jing, compiled during Yongle period, had specifications and dimensions for making abacus, and there were also some books introducing the usage of abacus, such as Zhu Zhu Algorithm by Xu Xinlu and Tong Zong by Cheng Dawei, so abacus was widely used in the Ming Dynasty, which is beyond doubt. With the discovery of new historical materials, the third theory of abacus originated in Tang Dynasty and was popular in Song Dynasty. The basis is as follows: First, in the famous painting The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival in Song Dynasty, there was a drugstore with an abacus on the counter. After enlarging the picture, the abacus experts in China and Japan confirmed that the object in the painting is a renju abacus similar to the abacus used in modern times. 2. 192 1 A wooden abacus bead was unearthed in Julu County, Hebei Province. Submerged by water and soil for 800 years, it is still drum-shaped with holes in the middle, which is no different from modern abacus beads. Third, Liu Yin was born in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty. His abacus poems are more accurate than describing things in the Yuan Dynasty. Similarly, Tao's "Three Beads Play" shows that there are abacus in Yuan people's proverbs, and it also reflects that "Fa prevailed in Song Dynasty" ("Algorithm unifies clans" in the Summary of Sikuquanshu). Fourthly, there are nine files of abacus figures in the textbooks of Mongolian studies in the early Yuan Dynasty. Since it was already a training content in the early Yuan Dynasty, it can be seen that it is an ordinary thing, and its appearance can at least be pushed to the Song Dynasty. In addition, the abacus in Song Dynasty was mature, and it was not as clumsy or rough as new things. Therefore, many mathematicians believe that the birth of abacus can be pushed to the Tang Dynasty. Due to the constant wars in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms before the Song Dynasty, the development of science, technology and culture was relatively slow, so it was unlikely that abacus was born at this time. The Tang Dynasty was a prosperous time in China's history, with developed economy and culture, and needed new calculation tools. At this time, the abacus was invented, which is very likely. Abacus is a valuable cultural heritage of the Chinese nation, but its origin has been debated for hundreds of years and cannot be unified. I hope more people with lofty ideals will devote themselves to further exploration and research and draw scientific conclusions as soon as possible to comfort the ancients and be worthy of future generations.