History
Counting rods were used by ancient Chinese for more than two thousand years. In 1954, forty-odd counting rods of the Warring States Period were found in Zuǒjiāgōngshān (左家公山) Chǔ Grave No.15 in Changsha, Hunan.
In 1973, archeologists unearthed a number of wood scripts from a Han dynasty tomb in Hubei, one of the wooden script written:“当利二月定算”，this is one of the earliest examples of using counting rod numeral in writing.
In 1976, a bundle of West Han counting rods made of bones in was unearthed from Qian yang county in Shanxi The use of counting rods must predate it; the Laozi, a text originating from the Warring States, said "a good calculator doesn't use counting rods." The Book of Han recorded: "they calculate with bamboo, diameter one fen, length six cun, arranged into a hexagonal bundle of two hundred seventy one pieces.". At first the cross section of calculating rod is round, by Sui dynasty, triangular rods were used to represent positive number,rectangular rods for negative numbers.
After the abacus flourished, counting rods were abandoned except in Japan, where rod numerals developed into symbolic notation for algebra.
Read more about this topic: Counting Rods
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)