Forget about "Recent research", look in the history books! "However, this switching from counting rods to abacus to gain speed in calculation was at a high cos

Forget about "Recent research", look in the history books! "However, this switching from counting rods to abacus to gain speed in calculation was at a high cost, causing the stagnation and decline of Chinese mathematics....In Ming dynasty, mathematicians were fascinated with perfecting algorithms for abacus, many mathematical works devoted to abacus mathematics appeared in this period, at the expense of new ideas creation." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mathematics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mathematics Weee, its repeating!