Abacus/Manual/Quick use/Division

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< Abacus‎ | Manual‎ | Quick use

Division is about twice as hard as multiplication. To divide one must be able to cut the original number in half or thirds or etc. to get another number. It is very hard for begginers and it is also hard for experts to do. Division is the only thing that the modern calculator beats the abacus at. To do division you have to think of it the same way as dividing on paper. Take the number, and multiply the number that is dividing by a number that is closest to the original number and that is the end result. But the problem with that is that you have to think that through, theres no easy way around in that fashion. A good example is:

  • 6/3=2
110111 110x
111011 110= (this is the answer)
111101 101

Another way to do division is to subtract what your dividing by then remember how many times you subtracted and that is your answer. Heres an example of this:

  • 8/2=4
110111 101- (count the minuses)
111011 110-
111011 110-
111011 110-
111011 110= (total count of 4 -2's)
111110 110 (zero)

So the answer to this question would be four because of the number of times you had to subtract.

Here is another example to figure out a decimal.

  • 5/4=1.25
111110 101-
101111 110=
111101 110 (total of 1 -4's with remainder of 1)
111101 110x
111110 011=
111110 011- (This is multiplied for 4 to fit into it)
101111 110-
101111 110=
111011 110 (total of 2 -4's with remainder of 2)
111011 110x
111110 011=
111110 011 2-
101111 110-
101111 110-
101111 110-
101111 110-
101111 110=
111110 110 (total of 5 -4's with remainder of 0)

with this we take the number of times that we subtracted in each section and place them beside each other. We then get 125 which is then decimaled by placing a decimal point after the first subraction set which leaves us with 1.25.

Remember, this is no easy work. Keep practicing until your good at this then you might be able to beat that calculator!