The power of anzan
Aditya Rishi

Mathematical writing doesn’t permit any indication of the labor behind the result — D. Weidman

ABACUS Abu to Mr Processor (continuing): "Chinese suan pan is different from the European abacus in that the board is split into two parts. The lower part contains only five counters on each wire, while the upper contains two. Digits from 0 to 4 are represented solely by counters in the lower part and the other five digits need an upper counter. For instance, 7 is represented by 2 lower counters and 1 upper counter."

"Japanese soroban differs from its Chinese relative in that it enforces carrying by containing only 4 counters below the middle bar and only 1 counter above the middle bar on each wire. This eliminates dual representations of 5s and 10s. The Japanese call the lower deck Earth and the upper portion heaven. For Japanese mathematics wizards, it’s a mind game; the town of Kyoto in Japan has a contest where contestants test skills on invisible abacus. Come with me and I’ll show you how it is done."

Abacus Abu takes the computer and the calculator to Kyoto, where contestants are sitting hunched over tables, while a small and quiet audience watches judges pacing the floor. Suddenly, a teenaged contestant shouts: "Done!" She, then, passes her answer-sheet to a judge, who wonders how she has multiplied in her head a list of numbers that would make an accountant’s head spin.

Abacus Abu: "She did it on an imaginary abacus, just as others have done throughout Asia for centuries. This girl takes only a few moments to figure out the quotient of 992.587318 divided by 5,647.723. This technique, called anzan, that roughly means mental calculation, comes from an age when the easiest way to work with large numbers was to use an abacus, a tool that came into Japan from China in the 16th century."

"Several contestants push the beads back and forth along metal rods, clicking their way through cube roots, addition, subtraction and long division, while skilled abacus users often just imagine the beads rather than physically move these. The masters of anzan work faster than even supercomputers. The fingers of the masters skitter across ghost abacuses on the table, while new practitioners rock in their seats to the internalised, imagined lilt of the sliding beads. The top title is given only to those who get perfect scores in addition and subtraction, multiplication, division and book-keeping."

Mr Processor "the computer": "I am sorry that I ever doubted your power." Abacus Abu: "I don’t know why you should be so apologetic. I have beaten all kinds of adding machines, including calculators and computers, in the past, but the abacus is, now, just a toy that even toddlers don’t like. With calculators and computers, I have doubts about my usefulness. People used to need the abacus to get a job. Now, it’s just a brain exercise, a mind game."

(Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in)