Dictionary

suanpan en · NOUN

Etymology

From Mandarin 算盤／算盘 (suànpán).

Meanings

1. A Chinese abacus with two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads on each rod in the bottom deck.
   • Humboldt defended the idea that the Chinese suanpan (our abacus) might be at the origin of our number system. 2016, Volker R. Remmert, Martina R. Schneider, Henrik Kragh Sørensen, editors, Historiography of Mathematics in the 19th and 20th Centuries, page 19:
   • The number of rods in the traditional suanpan is usually odd, and never less than nine. 2014, Yoshihide Igarashi, Tom Altman, Mariko Funada, Barbara Kamiyama, Computing: A Historical and Technical Perspective, page 64:

Forms