User:Maggieliu001/sandbox

The evident similarity of the Roman abacus to the Chinese one suggests that one must have inspired the other, as there is strong evidence of a trade relationship between the Roman Empire and China. While in Chinese history, suanpan is regarded as the fifth great invention. Which was used in the first development of the Chinese atomic bomb, in the calculations. However, no direct connection can be demonstrated, and the similarity of the abaci could be coincidental, both ultimately arising from counting with five fingers per hand. Where the Roman model and Chinese model (like most modern Japanese) has 4 plus 1 bead per decimal place, the old version of the Chinese suanpan has 5 plus 2, allowing less challenging arithmetic algorithms. Instead of running on wires as in the Chinese and Japanese models, the beads of Roman model run in grooves, presumably more reliable since the wires could be bent.