How To Use An Abacus

Learn how to use an abacus to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. In this video, Eddy takes a small detour from helping you build a business to learning how to use a 2,000 year old calculator. Why? Because it's a cool icebreaker at a party if you have absolutely no redeemable talents.

[auraandtheowls]

I’m about take a placement test and they said no calculators, I’m gonna bring a mf abacus

[matthewclarke]

It's not useless, those who become very skilled at the abacus can do difficult math in their mind, it becomes like a physical skill that you can perform mentally like riding a bike.

[deefee]

There's always an abacus in children's school rooms but noone knows how to use them. You blew me away!!

[monicaweaver]

It is not completely useless. It teaches you to think, keeps one’s mind active.

[jazzyj]

The benefit of the abacus in today's age is if you get really good at using it, you can visualize it and get accurate calculations for just about anything fairly quickly. I know a girl whose parents forced her to use an abacus on homework growing up and she's in her 20s now but can spit out an accurate answer for anything you throw at her because she uses a combination of mental math and mentally visualizing an abacus. She's crazy fast too.

[johnvickers]

I am completely blind, and used this tool all through college!

[johnforhan]

I’m 39 and I had no idea how to use this. Thank you for informing me, I will now file it in my brain in the “useless info I’ll never use” folder

[erickballesteros]

I wouldn't call it useless; it's a pretty good method to learn arithmetic for visual learners.
Really good video btw :)

[jenienh.]

Great. I remember learning with them as a kid but forgot how it works lol. Now I plan to homeschool and think I definitely will be incorporating an abacus

[Marshx]

Did I see you push 2 beads over when multiplying 21 x 7 but still come up with correct answer

[green]

I knew that you could use them for addition and subtraction but I had no idea you could use it for multiplication, division and roots. Genius.

[chavez]

It's not useless. When i saw a cute one at Ikea i got it to teach my kids how to add and subtract. I didn't know you used every row as a value holder. I wasn't taught how to use one. So, now I'll teach my kids the correct way. 😄

[kylegoyak]

I read a lot of medieval themed books and everytime a character uses an abacus I always wondered what the process was so thanks for the tutorial

[AfflictionGuides]

You dismiss how valuable learning the abacus is. In the West we learn to memorise our times tables for future use in mental arithmetic (which is much faster than a calculator: you can probably give me the answer to 8x5 long before anyone could even type the 8).
When you master the abacus you can do very complex sums mentally by imagining and ‘feeling’ the abacus in your mind - you may often see people playing with their fingers as if they have a physical abacus in front of them.
Now of course we all have calculators at our fingertips these days but if you know the abacus you could answer 659x 326 before someone has even grabbed their phone and opened the calculator app! Then we can also do powers and roots etc mentally too!
So it’s not a silly redundant device- it’s an invaluable skill that will inherently make your mind faster and sharper and ultimately make you a more intelligent person!

[uol]

Still using my 4th grade (memorized by flash cards and rote) multiplication tables, and 65 years later this has never failed. A return to this teaching method would benefit the public school system.

[vigneshwarp]

I used to think this is the most complicated thing in the world when I was a kid :) Now after 15 years to see how simple they are

[SlashAnimations]

"We are gonna learn a useless skill"

Later

"This is fancy"

[hajisakata]

I can use this when the teachers say no calculators allowed. One of the most useful tutorials in my life. You should watch too

[lettyg]

you explained it well, except for the multiplying with 2 digits I noticed you slid 2 of the top ones over instead of 1 at a time. You forgot to slide one in the beginning to include the 21 that was already at the bottom.

[mueezadam]

Great video Eddy.

When I was a middle-schooler in Egypt I remember abacuses were used as a primary form of solving problems, with calculators being used only to verify your answers afterward.

The equipment is obviously outdated but I'd argue an abacus is still a powerful tool for building one's mental arithmetic skills.