History
Brahmaguta was born in the city of Bhinmal in Northwest India in 597 AD. His father, whose name was Jisnugupta, was an astrologer. Although Brahmagupta thought of himself as an astronomer who did some mathematics, he is now mainly remembered for his contributions to mathematics. Many of his important discoveries were written as poetry rather than as mathematical equations! Nevertheless, truth is truth, regardless of how it may be written. Brahmagupta is unique. He is the only scientist we have to thank for discovering the properties of precisely zero.
Brahmagupta established rules for working with positive and negative numbers, such as:
• adding two negative numbers together always results in a negative number.
• subtracting a negative number from a positive number is the same as adding the two numbers.
• multiplying two negative numbers together is the same as multiplying two positive numbers.
• dividing a positive number by a negative, or a negative number by a positive results in a negative number.
Brahmagupta established rules for working with positive and negative numbers, such as:
• adding two negative numbers together always results in a negative number.
• subtracting a negative number from a positive number is the same as adding the two numbers.
• multiplying two negative numbers together is the same as multiplying two positive numbers.
• dividing a positive number by a negative, or a negative number by a positive results in a negative number.
