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Basic Maths, Round Numbers and Suanpan

Paddy

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I posted on here, but I would like to ask if anyone else shares this interest. For the simple reason that I had so much trouble understanding it in school, I have always had a dislike for maths, but, recently, after reading about the Japanese and Chinese abacus and downloading a virtual one, I have discovered that I absolutely love adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing round numbers. I understand the importance of being able to work with numbers that aren't exactly round, but I have found that I see a real beauty and elegance in working with whole round numbers.

In school I had to do maths problems like adding 986 and 512 and I sometimes spent weeks getting my head around the concepts and methods involved, but I understand working with round numbers so much more easily.

Am I the only one who sees the beauty and simplicity in working with round numbers, or can others relate to this as well?

Just curious, I guess.

Parents

  • Hi Paddy

    You are not the only one interested in numbers.  And round numbers have a certain beauty of their own.

    I always liked trying to work out ways of multiplication and division.  There were the old rules I learned, like to mutilply by 25, put two zeros on and divide by four.  Multiply by five by adding a zero and dividing by two.  And then there was multiplying by nine by adding a zero and taking one tenth away. Multiply by eleven by multiplying by ten and adding ten per cent. Multiply by eight by adding a zero and taking away twenty percent. (or doubling, then doubling again then doubling again).   A lot of shortcuts to help doing the sums in your head.

    But I was also brought up on pounds shillings and pence.  And they were really beautiful to use in mathematics.  One dozen items, just call the pence shillings.  Twenty items call the shillings pounds.  And six and eightpence was one third of a pound, One and eightpence was one twelfth of a pound. Two hundred and forty pence in a pound, four hundred and eighty ha'pennies and Nine hundred and sixty farthings.  Money was worth something in those days! Just wonderful to work with and a great pity that we went decimal.  Ever since a lot of people have been unable to do mental arithmetic.

    And now there are those who cannot add up anything without an electronic calculator.

Reply

  • Hi Paddy

    You are not the only one interested in numbers.  And round numbers have a certain beauty of their own.

    I always liked trying to work out ways of multiplication and division.  There were the old rules I learned, like to mutilply by 25, put two zeros on and divide by four.  Multiply by five by adding a zero and dividing by two.  And then there was multiplying by nine by adding a zero and taking one tenth away. Multiply by eleven by multiplying by ten and adding ten per cent. Multiply by eight by adding a zero and taking away twenty percent. (or doubling, then doubling again then doubling again).   A lot of shortcuts to help doing the sums in your head.

    But I was also brought up on pounds shillings and pence.  And they were really beautiful to use in mathematics.  One dozen items, just call the pence shillings.  Twenty items call the shillings pounds.  And six and eightpence was one third of a pound, One and eightpence was one twelfth of a pound. Two hundred and forty pence in a pound, four hundred and eighty ha'pennies and Nine hundred and sixty farthings.  Money was worth something in those days! Just wonderful to work with and a great pity that we went decimal.  Ever since a lot of people have been unable to do mental arithmetic.

    And now there are those who cannot add up anything without an electronic calculator.

Children
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