Story
Bhaskara I was a 7th-century astronomer of the school of Aryabhata — not to be confused with Bhaskaracharya (Bhaskara II), who lived five centuries later. His commentary on the Aryabhatiya (629 CE) and his books Mahabhaskariya and Laghubhaskariya explained and extended Aryabhata's methods.
Key contributions
- Gave a simple fraction formula for the sine function, accurate to about two decimal places, with no tables needed
- Wrote numbers in the Hindu decimal place-value system, using a circle for zero
- Wrote the Aryabhatiya-bhashya (629 CE), the oldest surviving prose commentary on Aryabhata
- Worked on indeterminate equations and planetary positions