Mathematician and engineer — Simon Stevin (1548–1620) was a Flemish mathematician, physicist and engineer, active in the Netherlands in the service of Prince Maurice of Orange. Largely self-taught, he helped spread the use of decimal fractions across Europe with the booklet De Thiende (1585). In statics he rediscovered and generalised the law of equilibrium on the inclined plane through an elegant argument involving a “wreath of spheres”, anticipating the principle of the impossibility of perpetual motion. In hydrostatics he formulated the so-called hydrostatic paradox, showing that the pressure on a container’s base depends on the height of the liquid and not on the shape or total quantity in the vessel. Around 1586, together with Jan Cornets de Groot, he dropped two lead spheres of different weight from the tower of Delft, observing that they touched the ground almost simultaneously, some years before Galileo’s celebrated reflections.
Trivia
He was so proud of his demonstration of the “wreath of spheres” (clootcrans) that he made it his personal emblem, with the motto “Wonder en is gheen wonder”, meaning “wonder is no miracle”.
Theories and contributions
- Decimal fractions — Introduced decimal notation for fractional numbers into European practice (De Thiende, 1585).
- Equilibrium on the inclined plane — With the “wreath of spheres” he demonstrated the equilibrium condition of weights on inclined planes, foreshadowing the decomposition of forces.
- Hydrostatic paradox — The force on the base of a vessel depends on the height of the liquid, not on the shape of the vessel: .
Appears in chapters
Linked atoms
3 linked atoms.