4.3 Chinese Number System (Lesson 11)

  • In ancient Chinese, rods counting had been used for more than two thousand years. Rods are small bars, which are usually 13-14cm long. They are placed horizontally or vertically on a counting board to represent different numbers.
  • A counting board has different compartments, which correspond to different place values. The following shows how counting rods were used to represent 0 to 9.

    • Counting rods
    Credit: Wikipedia
  • Similar to the Hindu-Arabic number system, the Chinese number system is a base-10 positional system consisting of "zero".
  • If there is no counting rod in a compartment on a counting board, it means "zero" for the corresponding place value. When the rod counting is recorded on paper, the symbols used are called rod numerals.
  • It is also quite amazing to see that the concept of negative numbers was already well developed by ancient Chinese in 2 B.C. Red and black rods were used to represent positive and negative numbers respectively.
  • The corresponding rod numerals are as follows:

    • Traditional positive rod numerals
    Credit: Wikipedia

    Traditional negative rod numerals
    Credit: Wikipedia