Simon Stevin
Simon Stevin, sometimes called Stevinus, was a Flemish mathematician, scientist and music theorist. He made various contributions in many areas of science and engineering, both theoretical and practical. He also translated various mathematical terms into Dutch, making it one of the few European languages in which the word for mathematics, wiskunde, was not a loanword from Greek but a calque via Latin. He also replaced the word chemie, the Dutch for chemistry, by scheikunde, made in analogy with wiskunde.
Biography
Very little is known with certainty about Simon Stevin's life, and what we know is mostly inferred from other recorded facts. The exact birth date and the date and place of his death are uncertain. It is assumed he was born in Bruges, since he enrolled at Leiden University under the name Simon Stevinus Brugensis. His name is usually written as Stevin, but some documents regarding his father use the spelling Stevijn ; this was a common spelling shift in 16th-century Dutch.Simon Stevin's mother, Cathelijne, was the daughter of a wealthy family from Ypres; her father Hubert was a poorter of Bruges. Cathelijne would later marry Joost Sayon, who was involved in the carpet and silk trade and was a member of the schuttersgilde Sint-Sebastiaan. Through her marriage, Cathelijne became a member of a family of Calvinists; it is thought that Simon Stevin was likely brought up in the Calvinist faith.
It is believed that Stevin grew up in a relatively affluent environment and enjoyed a good education. He was likely educated at a Latin school in his hometown.
Simon Stevin's travels
Stevin left Bruges in 1571 apparently without a particular destination. Stevin was most likely a Calvinist since a Catholic would likely not have risen to the position of trust he later occupied with Maurice, Prince of Orange. It is assumed that he left Bruges to escape the religious persecution of Protestants by the Spanish rulers. Based on references in his work "Wisconstighe Ghedaechtenissen", it has been inferred that he must have moved first to Antwerp where he began his career as a merchant's clerk. Some biographers mention that he travelled to Prussia, Poland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden and other parts of Northern Europe, between 1571 and 1577. It is possible that he completed these travels over a longer period of time. In 1577 Simon Stevin returned to Bruges and was appointed city clerk by the aldermen of Bruges, a function he occupied from 1577 to 1581. He worked in the office of Jan de Brune of the Brugse Vrije, the castellany of Bruges.Why he had returned to Bruges in 1577 is not clear. It may have been related to the political events of that period. Bruges was the scene of intense religious conflict. Catholics and Calvinists alternately controlled the government of the city. They usually opposed each other but would occasionally collaborate in order to counteract the dictates of King Philip II of Spain. In 1576 a certain level of official religious tolerance was decreed. This could explain why Stevin returned to Bruges in 1577. Later the Calvinists seized power in many Flemish cities and incarcerated Catholic clerics and secular governors supportive of the Spanish rulers. Between 1578 and 1584 Bruges was ruled by Calvinists.
Simon Stevin in the Netherlands
In 1581 Stevin again left his native Bruges and moved to Leiden where he attended the Latin school. On 16 February 1583 he enrolled, under the name Simon Stevinus Brugensis, at Leiden University, which had been founded by William the Silent in 1575. Here he befriended William the Silent's second son and heir Prince Maurice, the Count of Nassau. Stevin is listed in the university's registers until 1590 and apparently never graduated.Following William the Silent's assassination and Prince Maurice's assumption of his father's office, Stevin became the principal advisor and tutor of Prince Maurice. Prince Maurice asked his advice on many occasions, and made him a public officer – at first director of the so-called "waterstaet" from 1592, and later quartermaster-general of the army of the States-General. Prince Maurice also asked Stevin to found an engineering school within the University of Leiden.
Stevin moved to The Hague where he bought a house in 1612. He married in 1610 or 1614 and had four children. It is known that he left a widow with two children at his death in Leiden or The Hague in 1620.
Discoveries and inventions
Stevin is responsible for many discoveries and inventions. Stevin wrote numerous bestselling books, and he was a pioneer of the development and the practical application of science such as mathematics, physics and applied science like hydraulic engineering and surveying. He was thought to have invented the decimal fractions until the middle of the 20th century, when researchers discovered that decimal fractions had been previously introduced by the medieval Islamic scholar al-Uqlidisi in a book written in 952. Moreover, a systematic development of decimal fractions was given well before Stevin in the book Miftah al-Hisab written in 1427 by Al-Kashi.His contemporaries were most struck by his invention of a so-called land yacht, a carriage with sails, of which a model was preserved in Scheveningen until 1802. The carriage itself had been lost long before. Around the year 1600 Stevin, with Prince Maurice of Orange and twenty-six others, used the carriage on the beach between Scheveningen and Petten. The carriage was propelled solely by the force of wind and acquired a speed which exceeded that of horses.
Management of waterways
Stevin's work in the waterstaet involved improvements to the sluices and spillways to control flooding, exercises in hydraulic engineering. Windmills were already in use to pump the water out but in Van de Molens, he suggested improvements including ideas that the wheels should move slowly with a better system for meshing of the gear teeth. These improved threefold the efficiency of the windmills used in pumping water out of the polders. He received a patent on his innovation in 1586.Philosophy of science
Stevin's aim was to bring about a second age of wisdom, in which mankind would have recovered all of its earlier knowledge. He deduced that the language spoken in this age would have to be Dutch, because, as he showed empirically, in that language, more concepts could be indicated with monosyllabic words than in any of the languages he had compared it with. This was one of the reasons why he wrote all of his works in Dutch and left the translation of them for others to do. The other reason was that he wanted his works to be practically useful to people who had not mastered the common scientific language of the time, Latin. Thanks to Simon Stevin the Dutch language got its proper scientific vocabulary such as "wiskunde" for mathematics, "natuurkunde" for physics, "scheikunde" for chemistry, "sterrenkunde" for astronomy, "meetkunde" for geometry.Geometry, physics and trigonometry
Stevin was the first to show how to model regular and semiregular polyhedra by delineating their frames in a plane. He also distinguished stable from unstable equilibria.Stevin contributed to trigonometry with his book, De Driehouckhandel.
In The First Book of the Elements of the Art of Weighing, The second part: Of the propositions , Page 41, Theorem XI, Proposition XIX, he derived the condition for the balance of forces on inclined planes using a diagram with a "wreath" containing evenly spaced round masses resting on the planes of a triangular prism. He concluded that the weights required were proportional to the lengths of the sides on which they rested assuming the third side was horizontal and that the effect of a weight was reduced in a similar manner. It is implicit that the reduction factor is the height of the triangle divided by the side. The proof diagram of this concept is known as the "Epitaph of Stevinus". As noted by E. J. Dijksterhuis, Stevin's proof of the equilibrium on an inclined plane can be faulted for using perpetual motion to imply a reductio ad absurdum. Dijksterhuis says Stevin "intuitively made use of the principle of conservation of energy... long before it was formulated explicitly".
He demonstrated the resolution of forces before Pierre Varignon, which had not been remarked previously, even though it is a simple consequence of the law of their composition.
Stevin discovered the hydrostatic paradox, which states that the pressure in a liquid is independent of the shape of the vessel and the area of the base, but depends solely on its height.
He also gave the measure for the pressure on any given portion of the side of a vessel.
He was the first to explain the tides using the attraction of the moon.
In 1586, he demonstrated that two objects of different weight fall with the same acceleration.