Brahmagupta · Mathematics
How Brahmagupta’s <em>Brahmasphutasiddhanta</em> (628 CE) turned zero from a mere placeholder into a <em>number</em> with its own arithmetic - the first known rules for calculating with nothing, including the honest, unfinished question of what it means to divide by it.
You learned that before Brahmagupta zero was mostly a placeholder, and that he made it a number by defining it (a quantity minus itself) and giving arithmetic rules for it - while his division rules (0 divided by 0 as 0, and n divided by 0 left as a fraction) show he posed the deep question of division by zero without…
Leads to al-Khwarizmi.
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