Word: abacus
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...traces the history of mathematics from the days when the caveman could count only "one, two, one, two, and a heap.'' He describes the earliest numerals, explains the origin of the decimal system, shows how ancient merchants used their counting boards, stages a computation race with an abacus expert, tells about the discovery of zero." Now I heard every thing," grumbles Gargle. "Zero- zero means nothin' Baird, and you say the discovery of nothin' is a world-shaking event." In dealing with modern computers, Baird must include a quick explanation of the binary system.* He works...
...Illustrated American advised "the youth who cannot undergo the amusing ordeal with equanimity" to remain at home "in bib and trucker, and confine his worldly career to the mastery of the abacus and the building of mud pies...
...question as Chicago's big week began: Could Adlai ride out the Truman crisis and protect the huge lead he had collected? The answers lay in the abacus mind and the horny fists of his campaign manager, Pennsylvania's Jim Finnegan...
Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and James Bryant Conant '14, along with hundreds of other well-known alumni, have uncovered the news, written the editorials, photographed the local scene, and handled the abacus side of an operation which has long been one of the student's most profitable ways of spending his extra-curricular time...
...Even when we use the electronic calculator we are indebted to the long-forgotten Eastern merchant who first adapted number signs to the layout of the abacus. His predecessor, the temple scribe who gave each pebble a number value ten times as great when moved one groove to the left, first gave ordinary men a clear idea of the use of a fixed base in mathematics. The electronic calculator of today still makes use of a fixed base, though it commonly employs a base of two instead of ten . . . All our modern aids to calculation are the rewards of work...