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STEVINUS, SIMON (1548-1620)

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 911 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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STEVINUS, See also:SIMON (1548-1620) , Dutch mathematician, was See also:born in 1548 at See also:Bruges (where the See also:Place Simon Stevin contains his statue by Eugen Simonis) and died in 1620 at the. See also:Hague or in See also:Leiden. Of the circumstances of his See also:life very little is recorded; the exact See also:day of his See also:birth and the day and place of his See also:death are alike uncertain. It is known that he See also:left a widow with two See also:children; and one or two hints scattered throughout his See also:works inform us that he began life as a See also:merchant's clerk in See also:Antwerp, that he travelled in See also:Poland, See also:Denmark and other parts of See also:northern See also:Europe, and that he was intimate with See also:Prince See also:Maurice of See also:Orange, who asked his See also:advice on many occasions, and made him a public officer—at first director of the so-called " waterstaet," and afterwards quartermaster-See also:general. The question whether Stevinus, like most of the See also:rest of the prince's followers, belonged to the See also:Protestant creed hardly admits of a categorical See also:answer. A See also:Roman See also:Catholic would perhaps not have been so ready as Stevinus to deny the value of all authority. A Roman Catholic could not well have boasted, as Stevinus in a See also:political pamphlet did, that he had always been in See also:harmony with the executive See also:power. But against these considerations it might be urged that a Protestant had no occasion to boast of a harmony most natural to him, while his further remark to the effect that a See also:state See also:church is indispensable, and that those who cannot belong to it on conscientious grounds ought to leave the See also:country rather than show any opposition to its See also:rites, seems rather to indicate the crypto-Catholic. The same conclusion is supported by the fact that Stevinus, a See also:year before his death, bequeathed a pious See also:legacy to the church of Westkerke in See also:Flanders out of the revenues of which masses were to be said. His claims to fame are varied. His contemporaries were most struck by his invention of a See also:carriage with sails, a little See also:model of which was preserved at See also:Scheveningen till 1802. The carriage itself had been lost See also:long before; but we know that about the year 1600 Stevinus, with Prince Maurice of Orange and twenty-six others, made use of it on the seashore between Scheveningen and Petten, that it was propelled ,solely by the force of the See also:wind, and that it acquired a See also:speed which exceeded that of horses.

Another See also:

idea of Stevinus, for which even See also:Hugo See also:Grotius gave him See also:great See also:credit, was his notion of a bygone See also:age of See also:wisdom. The See also:goal to be aimed at is the bringing about of a second age of wisdom, in which mankind shall have recovered all its See also:early knowledge. The See also:fellow-countrymen of Stevinus were proud that he wrote in their own See also:dialect, which he thought fitted for a universal See also:language, as no other abounded like Dutch in monosyllabic See also:radical words. Stevinus was the first to show how to model See also:regular and semiregular polyhedra by delineating their frames in a See also:plane. Stevinus also distinguished See also:stable from unstable See also:equilibrium. He proved the See also:law of the equilibrium on an inclined plane. He demonstrated before See also:Pierre Varignon the See also:resolution of forces, which, See also:simple consequence of the law of their See also:composition though it is, had not been previously remarked. He discovered the hydrostatic See also:paradox that the downward pressure of a liquid is See also:independent of the shape of the See also:vessel, and depends only on its height and See also:base. He also gave the measure of the pressure on any given portion of the See also:side of a vessel. He had the idea of explaining the tides by the attraction of the See also:moon. Stevinus seems to be the first who made it an See also:axiom that strongholds are only to be defended by See also:artillery, the See also:defence before his See also:time having relied mostly on small firearms. He was the inventor of defence by a See also:system of sluices, which proved of the highest importance for the See also:Netherlands.

His plea for the teaching of the See also:

science of fortification in See also:universities, and the existence of such lectures in Leiden, have led to the impression that he himself filled this See also:chair; but the belief is erroneous, as Stevinus, though living at Leiden, never had See also:direct relations with its university. See also:Book-keeping by See also:double entry may have been known to Stevinus as clerk at Antwerp either practically or through the See also:medium of the works of See also:Italian authors like See also:Lucas Paccioli and See also:Girolamo See also:Cardan. He, however, was the first to recommend the use of impersonal accounts in the See also:national See also:household. He practised it for Prince Maurice, and recommended it to See also:Sully, the See also:French statesman. His greatest success, however, was a small pamphlet, first published in Dutch in 1586, and not exceeding seven pages in the French See also:translation. This translation is entitled La Disme enseignant facilement expedier See also:par Nombres Entiers sans romp= tous Cornptes se rencontrans auxAfaims See also:des Hommes. Decimal fractions had been employed for the extraction of square roots some five centuries before his time, but nobody before Stevinus established their daily use; and so well aware was he of the importance of his innovation that he declared the universal introduction of decimal coinage, See also:measures and weights to be only a question of time. His notation is rather unwieldy. The point separating the integers from the decimal fractions seems to be the invention of Bartholomaeus Pitiscus, in whose trigonometrical tables (1612) it occurs and it was accepted by See also:John See also:Napier in his logarithmic papers (1614 and 1619). Stevinus printed little circles See also:round the exponents of thedifferent See also:powers of one-tenth. For instance, 2371567686 was printed 237 0 5 0 7 ® 8 30; and the fact that Stevinus meant those encircled numerals to denote See also:mere exponents is evident from his employing the very same sign for powers of algebraic quantities, e.g. 9 0–14 3 + 6 0–5 to denote 9x' – 14x3 + 6x – 5.

He does not even avoid fractional exponents (" See also:

Racine cubique de 0 serait i en circle "), and is ignorant only of negative exponents. Stevinus wrote on other scientific subjects—See also:optics, See also:geography, See also:astronomy, &c.—and a number of his writings were translated into Latin by W. Snellius. There are two See also:complete See also:editions in French of his works, both printed at Leiden, one in 16o8, the other in 1634 by See also:Albert See also:Girard. See Steichen, See also:Vie et travaux de Simon Stevin (See also:Brussels, 1846) ; M. Cantor, Geschichte der Mathematik. (M.

End of Article: STEVINUS, SIMON (1548-1620)

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