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Posted on 07/10/2017 6:17:49 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
China’s first nuclear submarine was developed with the aid of an abacus, according to the scientist who led the project in the late 1950s.
Now 93, Huang Xuhua, chief designer of the Long March-1, said he still owns one of the suanpan [abacuses] that were used by his team almost 60 years ago, Chutian Metropolis Daily reported on Monday.
“Lots of critical data used in the development of the nuclear submarine jumped out from this suanpan,” he was quoted as saying.
Often referred to as the “Father of China’s nuclear subs”, Huang worked for China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, which had several abacus calculation teams divided into specialist sections, he said.
Scientists “attacked the beads [on their abacuses] until every section reached the same result”, he said, adding that the constant clattering was enough to make entire buildings “rattle from dawn until dusk”.
The Chinese abacus dates back to about 200BC. Traditional designs featured a bamboo frame with beads that could be pushed up or down. Even today, skilled users can perform mathematical calculations on them as quickly as they can on a calculator.
Zhang Jinlan, one of the experts currently working on nuclear submarines at China Shipbuilding Industry Corp, said that for designers working today, trying to build a vessel using an abacus would be a “mission impossible”, the report said.
“This is not simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but involves algorithms and models with sophisticated mathematical language, such as trigonometric functions and logarithms,” he was quoted as saying.
Huang, however, said that by doing the calculations by hand he and his fellow scientists were able to overcome many challenging technical issues. Such was their success that they came up with five original designs in a period of just three months, the report said.
The first Long March-1 was completed in 1970 and went into military service four years later. It was retired last year and is now on exhibition at a naval museum in Qingdao, eastern China’s Shandong province.
A 5 gigahertz abacus is a sight to behold!
We used slide rules to put a man on the moon.
I thought the Long March-1 was their first rocket?
I leaned/used slide rule in physics and electronics classes while working my way to a BS.
Still have the slide rule. Lafayette 99-71029 Vectorlog with the leather holster!
During their war against the Nationalists and the Korean war, the Chinese Army would typically have 1 or 2 unarmed soldiers following behind each rifleman to pick up spent shell casings and paper for recycling, and of course, to pick up his rifle and continue an attack if he fell.
I have a slide rule -— somewhere. I think I might even remember how to use it.
“I have a slide rule -— somewhere. I think I might even remember how to use it.”
I’l do you one better. I have a Smith-Corona electric portable typewriter I purchased in the summer of 1966 to use in law school and a Curta calculator I bought in 1970 to do estate work.
We’re definitely dating ourselves.
I used a slide rule and pencil and paper to study for my second and first class FCC licenses in the early ‘70’s which I passed on my first attempts. While studying for my first, I could do long multiplication and division in my head most of the time.
Asians can use abacuses faster than we use calculators, so they aren’t really at a disadvantage.
Sl;ide rules and on-site brains instead of computer apps.
Same thing for developing the first nuclear and therm0-nuclear bombs as well as the first US nuclear subs.
How many people could duplicate those engineering feats today without their computers?
I’ve seen some people use the abacus smoothly and with fluency. It was like watching them play the piano.
Communists NEVER developed anything without STEALING from America first.
i still have a circular slide rule somewhere
At that time, we were using slide rules.
‘Scientists “attacked the beads [on their abacuses]’
the proper nominative plural for ‘abacus’ is ‘abaci’...
They almost certainly used trigonometric and logarithmic tables, the abacuses just did the manual calculations. The abacus did what a desktop adding machine would have done in the 1940’s in America. Richard Feynman was the head of computational physics at Los Alamos. He had roomful of very talented, well-educated and intelligent low-ranking enlisted men working for him on adding machines.
He reported that they took initiative and found better ways of tackling a problem that he had assigned to them. Bet there wasn’t a lot of that going on at the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation. I suspect everyone just did what he was told to do.
So?
The US sent men to the moon using twenty inch slide rules
Same goes for the first Stealth design. Math was done and plans drawn, but the material needed was yet not available. Put them in the drawer for a few decades, dust them off, check all the math done by hand using computer and it was spot on. What a Plane!
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