IndiaBrahmagupta
saidundated
The sum of two positive quantities is positive; of two negative is negative; of a positive and a negative is their difference; or, if they are equal, zero.
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Updated 2026-06-08
He gave mathematics the number that meant nothing—and changed everything. Brahmagupta formalized zero as a concept, not just a placeholder, in 7th-century India, and handed later centuries the arithmetic they'd need to build the world.
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Brahmagupta lived and worked in India during the early 7th century, producing two major texts that reshaped mathematics and astronomy. In 628 he completed the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta, a theoretical treatise that laid out the first clear description of the quadratic formula and established rules for operating with zero—treating it as a number in its own right, not merely a mark of absence. He was also the first Indian scholar to describe gravity as an attractive force, using the Sanskrit term "gurutvākarṣaṇam." Thirty-seven years later, in 665, he published the Khandakhadyaka, a more practical ma…
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Sourced, dated quotes from Brahmagupta
Brahmagupta
saidundated
In subtraction, the less is to be taken from the greater, positive from positive; negative from negative.
Brahmagupta
saidundated
The product of a negative quantity and a positive is negative; of two negatives, is positive; of two positives, is positive.
Brahmagupta
saidundated
Positive, divided by positive, or negative by negative, is positive. Zero, divided by zero, is zero. Positive, divided by negative, is negative.
Brahmagupta
saidundated
The square of negative or positive is positive; of zero, is zero. The root of a square is such as was that from which it was raised [i.e. either positive or negative]. (37).
— Brahmagupta, Brahmasphutasiddhanta quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this
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