After completing his studies, Brahmagupta became the head of the astronomical observatory at Ujjain, India. While he was at Ujjain, he wrote many mathematical and astronomical textbooks. Brahmagupta's textbooks were often criticized by other mathematicians as his textbooks often dealt with very unusual ideas. Brahmagupta died in 668 AD, at 70 years of age.
"Brahmagupta's abstract ideas were often harshly refuted by mathematicians especially from the Jain religion. This was because those ideas often were very controversial."
~ Hannah Fry
(Mathematician)
As well as zero, Brahmagupta had many other accomplishments. Key among them were:
-Created several useful formulas for calculating areas of shapes in geometry.
- Said the length of a year is 365 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes, and 9 seconds which was remarkably close to the actual length of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. He did this with no scientific devices.
-Created some of the first rules for positive and negative numbers.
"Brahmagupta is one of the greatest scientists of his race and the greatest of his time."
~ George Sarton
(Chemist, 1884-1956)