Stevin, Simon (sē`môn stəvīn`), 1548–1620, Dutch engineer and mathematician. His experiments in hydrostatics showed that the pressure exerted by a liquid is dependent only on its vertical height and not on the shape of the liquid's container, and demonstrated the principle of the hydraulic press. He probably anticipated Galileo's experiments with falling bodies. Stevin is also credited with the introduction of decimals into common usage.

Stevin, Simon

(born 1548, Bruges, Flanders—died 1620, The Hague, Holland) Flemish mathematician. In 1585 Stevin published a small pamphlet, La Thiende (“The Tenth”), in which he presented an account of decimal fractions and their daily use. Though he did not invent decimal fractions and his notation was clumsy, he established the use of decimals in day-to-day mathematics.

Stevin, Simon

Born 1548 in Bruges; died 1620 in The Hague. Dutch scholar and engineer.

Stevin began teaching at the University of Leiden in 1583. In 1592 he obtained a post as engineer and then became commissioner of public works and quartermaster general for Maurice of Nassau. In 1600 he organized a school of engineering at the University of Leiden in which he gave lectures on mathematics. His work De Thiende (The Tenth, 1585) was devoted to the decimal system of measures and decimal fractions, which he had introduced into Europe.

In mechanics, Stevin provided a proof for the law of equilibrium of a body on an inclined plane based on the impossibility of perpetual motion, and he formulated the theorem of the triangle of forces. Stevin also wrote works on hydrostatics and navigation and on technical problems and problems of military engineering.

WORKS

The Principal Works of Simon Stevin, vols. 1–5, Amsterdam, 1955–66.
In Russian translation:
“Nachala gidrostatiki.” In the collection Nachala gidrostatiki: Arkhimed, Stevin, Galilei, Paskal’. Moscow-Leningrad, 1932.

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Stevin, Simon

Stevin, Simon

WORKS

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