suanpan

See also: suànpán

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Mandarin 算盤／算盘 (suànpán).

Noun

suanpan (plural suanpans)

  1. A Chinese abacus with two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads on each rod in the bottom deck.
    • 2014, Yoshihide Igarashi; Tom Altman; Mariko Funada; Barbara Kamiyama, Computing: A Historical and Technical Perspective‎, page 64:
      The number of rods in the traditional suanpan is usually odd, and never less than nine.
    • 2016, Volker R. Remmert, editor, Historiography of Mathematics in the 19th and 20th Centuries‎, page 19; republished as Martina R. Schneider, editor,(Please provide a date or year):
      Humboldt defended the idea that the Chinese suanpan (our abacus) might be at the origin of our number system.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.