When I returned to London I asked Brian Butterworth, professor of cognitive neuropsychology at University College London, if there was any science behind claims that the abacus improves mathematical ability. Number squares: abacus and tartan bag (Picture: Alex Bellos) In this way the abacus user begins with an intuitive understanding of the size of the number – something which you do not get when calculating the way we learn at school. With the abacus, on the other hand, you start with the leftmost digit of a number, the highest value column, as seen in the clip above, and gradually work your way to the units. When you add and multiply using a pen and paper, you always start with the units and then work backwards to the tens, hundreds and so on. When you learn with an abacus, she added, you have a concrete representation of numbers, which makes them easier to understand.įrom looking at the children doing their sums, I saw that the abacus also makes intuitive sense. Mina, who lives and teaches in California, said that American children find numbers harder to grasp than Japanese children because they see them as purely abstract, and this leads to many children hating mathematics. (I went to the All-Japan National Soroban Championship, which will be the subject of a future post.)įor some teachers, like Mina Watanabe, the abacus is important in fostering a love of numbers. When you reach certain levels you are awarded dans, just like in the martial arts, and there are many local, regional and national competitions.
Abacus calculation is treated like a sport. Urawa Soroban Academy boss Chie Takayanagi says that whereas in the past soroban training had practical use, it remains popular because it brings other benefits that are still relevant, such as concentration and memorisation skills.Īnd it is also fun.
My first question was why? What is the point of learning how to calculate fast using an abacus, since we never need to use one in the real world? I have never felt held back by my inability to perform speedy additions of absurdly large numbers. There I saw children as young as five perform stunningly fast calculations. My first stop was the Urawa Soroban Academy in Tokyo, one of Japan's 20,000 or so after-school abacus clubs. They should now read 4, blank, and 8, making your answer 408.I recently went to Japan in order to make a BBC Radio 4 documentary on Japanese number culture. Record the product of the last two digits 4 and 2 (8), in the last of the answer columns.Since you're adding a 4 to a 6 in that column, carry one bead over to the first answer column, making a 4 in the seventh column (four beads from the bottom section pushed up to center bar) and a 0 in the eighth (all beads in their original starting position: the top section bead pushed up, bottom section beads pushed down). When you multiply the 4 and the 1, add that product (4) to the eighth column, the second of the answer columns.Push one bead from the upper section down, and one bead from the lower section up. Next, multiply the 3 and the 2, recording their product in the eighth column.
Push three beads up in that seventh column. First, multiply 3 and 1, recording their product in the first answer column.For the problem 34 x 12: X Research source You will keep moving beads on the right hand portion of the abacus as you multiply the individual digits. Start recording in the first answer column, after the blank one for the "=" sign. Record the products in the correct order.