Ancient Computing Technology

From Abacuses to Water Clocks

From the Series Technology in Ancient Cultures

  • Interest Level: Grade 6 - Grade 12
  • Reading Level: Grade 6

Did you know . . .
• Ancient cultures measured time accurately with water clocks?
• An engineer in the first century B.C. designed an odometer to calculate distance traveled?
• People computed the first values of pi about four thousand years ago?

Computing technology is as old as human society itself. The first humans on Earth used basic computing skills. They counted by carving tally marks in bone. They used body parts and basic tools to measure. Over the centuries, ancient peoples learned more about computing. People in the ancient Middle East used scales to measure goods for trading. The ancient Egyptians wrote textbooks including multiplication and division problems. The ancient Chinese developed an abacus for speedy calculations. Ancient Greeks made advances in geometry.

What kinds of tools and techniques did ancient mathematicians use? Which of their inventions and discoveries have stood the test of time? And how did the ancients set the stage for our own modern computing? Learn more in Ancient Computing Technology.

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978-0-7613-7271-4
$35.99
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Interest Level Grade 6 - Grade 12
Reading Level Grade 6
Genre Social Studies, Young Adult
Publisher Lerner Publishing Group
Imprint Twenty-First Century Books ™
Language English
Publication Date 2011-01-01
Text Type Informational/Explanatory
BISACS YAN055050, YAN025020
Dewey 510.28'4
Graphics Full-color illustrations
Features Bibliography/further reading, Glossary, Index, Maps, Primary source quotations/images, Sidebars, Source notes, Table of contents, Teaching Guides, Timeline, and eSource