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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Durham

    Bizarre Object Found on UNC Campus: Explanation Needed

    Spotted during a visit Friday afternoon:



    This is sort of like those New Yorker cartoons where you have to submit a caption for, except there's probably more funny things to say.

    -Boyce

  2. #2

    Their catching up, slowly

    It has been there for a while. I think that their IT depaertment is cliaming to have invented the abacus.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    New York City
    Weird to go to all that trouble to build a giant abacus and then not display it right side up.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by BluBones View Post
    Weird to go to all that trouble to build a giant abacus and then not display it right side up.
    Uh, actually the abacus is right side up. My dad taught me to use an abacus in elementary school (something he learned in elementary school) and it's definitely not upside down. Now, they are missing a set of beads on both the top and bottom. It should have 2 beads on the top and five beads on the bottom. They help facilitate carrying during addition.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Bizarre Object Found on UNC Campus: Explanation Needed
    Given the thread title, I was expecting a picture of Ivory Latta.
    Last edited by throatybeard; 03-04-2007 at 03:49 PM.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Hotlanta
    No,it's to celebrate the Helms Foundation decision that UNC had invented the abacus.

  7. #7
    that is a japanesse abacus
    http://webhome.idirect.com/~totton/abacus/pages.htm
    here is a simple explanation if you are dont want the trouble of clicking the link
    The Japanese Soroban

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Charleston, SC
    so the unc IT dept invented the japanese abacus. how cool is that!

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by godukecom View Post
    that is a japanesse abacus
    http://webhome.idirect.com/~totton/abacus/pages.htm
    here is a simple explanation if you are dont want the trouble of clicking the link
    The Japanese Soroban
    Ah, that explains it. I learned on the Chinese abacus. My bad, I just assumed that they were all alike since I had seen a Russian one years ago and I remember it as being the same as the Chinese abacus. Thanks and sorry about that. As an aside I don't think it really matters where the units bar starts. The one my dad had used a metal bar to denote the units place. And it had about 5 or 6 rows to the right of it.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    New York City
    Quote Originally Posted by hughgs View Post
    Uh, actually the abacus is right side up. My dad taught me to use an abacus in elementary school (something he learned in elementary school) and it's definitely not upside down. Now, they are missing a set of beads on both the top and bottom. It should have 2 beads on the top and five beads on the bottom. They help facilitate carrying during addition.
    My bad. I didn't think it was upside down; I thought it was on its side. After some minimal googling I find that that was because the abacus I learned to use in elementary school was apparently a Russian abacus:



    Communist influence? Probably.

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