Simon Stevin

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.