Mathematical Treasures - Simon Stevin's Arithmetic

Simon Stevin (1548–1620) was a Dutch military engineer, a mathematician, and an adventurer. In 1585, he published L’Arithmetique, one of only two books that he wrote in the French language. In this work, he reiterated his theory of decimal fractions, provided a unifying theory for quadratic equations, and introduced a method of approximation to find the roots of higher order algebraic equations. This is the title page of L’Arithmetique.

Here on pages 142 and 143, Stevin discussed his system for decimal fractions.

Pages 440 and 441 provide exercises in performing operations involving decimal fractions. 

These images from its George Arthur Plimpton Collection are presented through the courtesy of the Columbia University Libraries.

For additional images of Stevin's mathematics, see Mathematical Treasure: Simon Stevin's Oeuvres Mathematiques here in Convergence.

Index to Mathematical Treasures