Counting rods (simplified Chinese: 筹; traditional Chinese: 籌; pinyin: chóu; Japanese: 算木, sangi) are small bars, typically 3–14 cm long, used by mathematicians for calculation in ancient China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. They are placed either horizontally or vertically to represent any number and any fraction.
The written forms based on them are called rod numerals. They are a true positional numeral system with digits for 1-9 and a blank for 0, from the Warring states period to the 16th century.
Read more about Counting Rods: History, Using Counting Rods, Rod Numerals
Famous quotes containing the words counting and/or rods:
“What culture lacks is the taste for anonymous, innumerable germination. Culture is smitten with counting and measuring; it feels out of place and uncomfortable with the innumerable; its efforts tend, on the contrary, to limit the numbers in all domains; it tries to count on its fingers.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)
“The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)