Brass corner pieces hold the box together. Frank A.Taylor, a staff member in the Department of Arts and Industries at the United States National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, first lent the ...

The Chinese abacus (suan pan) dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC), and is often referred to as China's fifth great invention, after the compass, gunpowder, movable type and paper.

The Chinese abacus is a simple device for performing mathematical calculations. The abacus can perform addition, subtraction, division and multiplication; it can also be used to obtain square ...