Talk:Soroban

explanation needed

I quote

Primary school students often bring two soroban to class, one with the modern configuration and the one having the older configuration of one heavenly bead and five earth beads.

Where does this come from ? any reference ? and an explanation of the reason of this ? Is this only because they are not yet accustomed to use a five-heavenly bead ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.54.30.171 (talk) 13:04, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I am also unsure as to what they mean, but I believe that they are supposed to mean the higher bead, which represents 5, ("heavenly," or high) and the lower beads which represent 1 ("earth," or low). An explanation should definitely be inserted somewhere, explaining what they mean, instead of just starting to use the terms and do nothing to explain what they are and where they came from. 50.206.152.149 (talk) 17:10, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

ànsuàn

I found this sentence in the article very odd.

Many soroban experts are also proficient in mental calculation, known as anzan (暗算, anzan? "blind calculation") in Japanese and as ànsuàn in Mandarin Chinese.

The part

and as ànsuàn in Mandarin Chinese

does not make sense at all. In Chinese usage, the phrase 暗算 means secret plots and/or conspiracy. Mental calculation is usually translated as xinsuan (心算). Trying to explain a Japanese termnology as Chinese is strange if not invalid.

Kowloonese (talk) 01:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Soroban vs Calculator

Isn't it somewhat misleading? The section title makes it sound like it was a soroban vs a modern calculator, but in fact it was a clunky device from 1946. 87.97.91.248 (talk) 11:27, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so; that was, after all, the standard title of the electric device at the time, and it was hardly clunky by 1946 standards. I'll try and clarify that. -- MatthewDBA (talk) 14:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to add a paragraph to this and refrain myself. I add it here for consideration by others Solsticedhiver (talk) 12:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Speed is always relative. An average soroban user is almost always faster than an average calculator user because a soroban user devellops speed skills through the use of his/her soroban. And very few calculator users do so. When they do, i think they could beat soroban users. Look at this amazing video Hyper speed calculator lady on YouTube. But soroban is not only about speed. It's you that make the calculation and not the calculator. This means you can use it to make mental calculation. And then, you can be really even more faster to make calculation; this time only addition though multiplication is not impossible. In these videos, you will not see any abacus: It's All in the mind on YouTube ...

Chinese division table

The Chinese division table is now shown as a nice table (rather than an image) here, and also in the article Suanpan. Replacing the image by a table is a good idea, but having the full source for that table in two places is not.

• Should it go in a separate article linked both places?
• Should it be a section in the Suanpan article, linked from the Soroban article?
• Should it be a template included in both articles?

--Nø (talk) 08:33, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I think the Chinese division table belongs more to the suanpan page. Especially, if this was never used by a soroban user (?) Does one need the extra beads of the suanpan to use the division table ?? So, it could be only a link in the soroban page. I vote for solution number 2. Solsticedhiver (talk) 20:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

External Links

I have a link to a very capable virtual soroban, but I wrote the program myself and it's on my own site. It's therefore against the rules for me to put the link into the main Soroban page, though the rules appear to say that I am allowed to mention it on this discussion page and leave it to others to decide whether it should be included in the main page. You can find it at Virtual Soroban (written in JavaScript). It may be that it would have a place on the Abacus page too, but again I will leave that for others to decide.Djvyd (talk) 22:58, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Chinese or Roman

The number of beads, however, is similar to the Roman abacus, which had four beads below and one at the top.

is also similar to the old style Chinese suanpan Gisbrother (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:57, 27 December 2011 (UTC).

"Heaven" and "Earth"?

Why are the terms "heavenly beads" and "earth beads" used in this article? I have been involved in Soroban classes in Japan and Soroban teaching in Australia using both Japanese and English since 1992 and I have never seen or heard this "heaven/earth" nomenclature in any text or from any teacher. All Japanese texts that I have seen use the terms: "五だま（ごだま）" and "一だま（いちだま）"; in English: "five-bead(s)" and "one-bead(s)". I don't know if these terms are used in other countries (eg: China?), but as this article is specifically about the Japanese form of soroban as used in Japan, I think that this Orientalist language is inappropriate and unjustified. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deejuggle (talk • contribs) 12:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's common nomenclature for the very similar Chinese suanpan, but if, as you say, it's not commonly used for the soroban, I guess it should be avoided here.--Nø (talk) 13:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

It should be noted that there are established Soroban instructors such as Miwako Sakabayashi (who happens to be Japanese) who use the terms heaven and earth. Should we delete the language Heaven and Earth based upon one person's non-documented, anecdotal writing? Lets also not forget that the modern Soroban itself is a clear descendent of the Suapan (Chinese Abacus) and that it is natural that many global soroban users are going to use the dominant abacus language to describe the Soroban. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.172.57.217 (talk) 04:50, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

http://webhome.idirect.com/~totton/abacus/pages.htm uses heaven and earth on a soroban — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.93.97.172 (talk) 15:22, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Compactness of calculation

The following quote reads to me that a 13x4/1 abacus (soroban) is more compact and can calculate equal to a 13x5/2 abacus (suanpan).

"The number and size of beads in each rod make a standard-sized 13-rod soroban much less bulky than a standard-sized suanpan of similar expressive power."

This seems like a subjective and deceptive statement which may not necessarily describe reality accurately.

specific complaints:

1) Who defines standard-size (if there is a standard size?)? Does this standard size remain the same or can it fluctuate depending on which manufacturer is favored at a particular time?

2) Probably a bigger complaint than the subjectivity of "standard-size" is the mathematical difference in a 5/2 vs a 4/1 abacus. The 5/2 if utilized in it's greatest expressive form (hexadecimal) will require fewer rods (and thus be smaller) when compared to a device which at the maximum can only handle a decimal system.

to illustrate 2) a 13 rod suanpan could calculate to the decimal number 4,503,599,627,370,495 an equivalent soroban would require 16 rods as the expressive power increases this difference in the number of rods becomes greater. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.93.97.172 (talk) 14:00, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Historical context beyond "it came from China"

One thing I thought this page lacked -- especially when it has sections titles usage and history, is to incorporate more contextual history of the role soroban plays within the culture: who used it exactly, how was it used, how did who and how change over time, how is it regarded on an institutional level, a local level, and social level (like status). If the point of a Wikipedia page is to be factual and act as a jumping off point through which one can gain the general gist of a subject, I believe this contextual information is necessary because it gives a reader more layers through which to analyze and dig deeper. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gk2020m (talk • contribs) 15:34, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Quite. The Japanese fetishize it to a certain extent: there are movies & TV drama about soroban samurai... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.85.205.157 (talk) 04:18, 5 April 2022 (UTC)