Series

Unsung Bits

The History of Indian Computing

The Number That Shouldn't Exist
TL;DR Brahmagupta defined explicit arithmetic rules for zero in 628 CE, shifting it from a placeholder to a formal number. The combination of Aryabhata's positional notation and Brahmagupta's zero m
Sep 26, 202611 min read1
The Algorithm That Grinds Problems to Dust
In 499 CE, Aryabhata wrote down a step-by-step procedure for solving equations that would take European mathematics another twelve centuries to independently rediscover.
Sep 19, 202612 min read
The Poet Who Accidentally Invented Binary (Sort Of)
Piṅgala's Chandaḥśāstra how a ~3rd century BCE Sanskrit prosodist built algorithms for enumerating poetic meters that happen to be structurally identical to binary counting.
Sep 12, 202612 min read5
The Grammar That Runs Like a Program
Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī is 3,959 rules for generating all of Sanskrit. It looks eerily like a compiler
Sep 5, 202612 min read9
History of computer science in india Part 2
Unsung Bits: the wild, underrated CS ideas that came out of India
Jul 30, 20267 min read4