SUMS WITHOUT TEARS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 128, 12 March 1936, Page 8

SUMS WITHOUT TEARS.

A MULTIPLICATION TABLE One day—one day—the drudgery of learning the multiplication table will be abolished, and mathematicians will pretend they have invented a “new” system of counting which was, in fact, used by our untutored ancestors 5000 year ago. Bht that day is not yet.

A start lias been made, however. A machine was demonstrated recently to members of the Institute of Actuaries which showed how even millions could he multiplied by millions in a single second, without any brainwork at all.

Its production is the work of Mr E. William Phillips, general manager, of the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company of Canada, and although he has spent years in developing it lie was at pains to emphasise that its principles are the same as those of the 5000-year-old Rhind papyrus which is in the British Museum.

The calculating system into which Mr Phillips lias put new life is based on numerical pairs instead of tens. It is too abstruse for simple explanation; but the lay mind grasps the fact that all numbers are expressed by means of the two figures 1 or 0.

The actuaries were fascinated by the machine. It will be of immense use to them and to scientists and research workers. But not, for the moment, to the schoolboy. “The whole civilised world has been counting in tens for so many years,” Mr Phillips said, “that it is unlikely to change over to any other system for some little time—at any rate until after those who are boys and girls now have loft school.” The British Government had an inkling 100 years ago of the new age that will eventually dawn. They spent £17,000 on Babbage’s difference engine, which was intended to do what Mi Phillips has now done. But after ten years’ work the machine was abandoned uncompleted. And Smith Minor went on learning up to twelve times twelve.