Assignment 1

Simon Stevin (1548-49 – 1620) was born in Belgium and accomplished many things throughout his life. He translated many mathematical terms into Dutch, allowing others to understand the theories without knowledge of Latin. He also invented the land yacht, which was many sails attached to a boat type mechanism that sailed between different islands such as Scheveningen and Petten. He also had a theory that Dutch would become the new scientific language, replacing Latin because it was easier to put terms into one syllable words than any other European language. He therefore did all of his scientific work in Dutch, so as to allow others to have to translate it into Latin or any other language. His work encompassed many different areas, such as music theory, book keeping, geometry, and physics in his work.

Picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Stevin