Abacus

The Abacus is an instrument that has been used in China for at least 2500 years, known as SUAN-PAN. Around 400 years ago the Japanese took the abacus to Japan, where they developed a more modern version and maintained the same name in ideograms given by the Chinese, which originated the name SOROBAN.

Besides the Chinese and Japanese abacuses, modern and old, there are others, such as the Roman (abacus), Greek (abax), Aztecan (nepohualtzitzin), Russian (stchoty) and others.

In the beginning only addition and subtraction operations were registered. Only later techniques were developed for multiplication and division. Currently, techniques are already known to calculate square and cubic roots, operations with hours, minutes and seconds and also weight and measure conversion. Using the abacus, we can operate with whole, decimal and negative numbers quickly and precisely.

The abacus has strong cultural roots in Japan, whereas it has been part of the mandatory education for over sixty years. Today, almost all schools teach abacus classes in extracurricular courses. There are also over two hundred organized associations that dispute local, national and international championships, producing real champions and idols.

Besides China and Japan, many oriental countries such as India, Malaysia, Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, among so many others, intensely practice calculus using the Abacus. Recently, western countries, acknowledging efficiency of the practice as a way to exercise the brain and develop skills, starting adopting it. The United States and Canada have adopted it only four years ago.

The abacus is not very known in Brazil and it has arrived with Japanese immigrants in 1908, for their own usage. The greatest enthusiast in the country was Professor Fukutaro Kato, who published, in 1958, the book “Soroban by the Modern Method”. He founded the Shuzan Cultural Association of Brazil (ACSB), which organizes yearly championships. Shuzan is the art of calculating with the soroban.

Teaching has always been very restricted to Japanese descendents, but acknowledging the practice’s efficiency, the Bradesco Foundation school has taught abacus classes for over forty years and the Bandeirantes school, in Mogi das Cruzes and Suzano, have given courses for over 15 years.