Talk:Simon Stevin/Archive 1

Archive 1

Dutch

Dutch is not the only language which uses a non-Greek derived name for mathematics. Icelandic also is one. --Starryboy 14:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Reference for claim

Could someone please give a reference for this claim:

This name became so well used that in France there is still a government authority that has the literal name 'Waterstaat'.

I have tried to verify this, but to no avail. The best I can come up with is that the dutch Rijkswaterstaat has been part of the Service des Ponts et Chaussées around 1810 when The Netherlands were part of France for a short period. -- Wijnand 15:15, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I have removed this claim from the article until someone can give a reference. -- Wijnand 12:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

waterstaat

i removed nonsense inluded here about the origin of the word waterstaat. Aleichem 10:49, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

for source see Busken Huet - het land van Rembrand p.23 note 1 Aleichem 08:03, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't see how that footnote relates to your claim that what you removed is nonsense (Stevin could easily have suggested the name first, and then been appointed to the function of inspector by Maurits; your reference doesn't seem to give conclusive evidence). Though granted, it did need a citation of some sort anyway, so I'm not arguing to return the segment. Wijnand 12:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

math journal

There is a Belgian math journal named after Stevin. It may be worth mentioning it here. Tkuvho (talk) 19:40, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

"law of the equilibrium on an inclined plane"

As a "law" you would think there would be a good WP page to link here, but there isn't. It looks like law of the equilibrium on an inclined plane is a term that actually reduces to a different law. I'll try to figure out which one and link to it. --Air (talk) 15:34, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

From the Feynman book, it's the law of conservation of energy. Fixed. --Air (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Windmills

In episode 4 of the current BBC series The Story of Science Stevin is credited with making dramatic improvements to windmills thus greatly benefitting the Dutch economy. Could someone with access to BBCs iPlayer (I don't live in the UK) add a suitable section? Jjc2002 (talk) 19:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC)Jjc2002

Copyright problem removed

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Stevin's tombstone

Does anyone know where the tombstone is? (In which case a photograph would be appropriate.) Or is the inscription mere legend? 271828182 21:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Stevin's grave does not exist; the myth that the diagram had been inscribed on Stevin's tombstone was created by Feynman. Ceinturion (talk) 18:55, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible he was referring to the inscription on the statue (pictured in the article)? --Air (talk) 15:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

According to the Nederlands wikipedia there was at one time a Stevin memorial plaque (rouwbord in Dutch) in the church of Alphen aan den Rijn which contained the family crest consisting of a weighted wreath, referred to as the clootcrans in old Dutch, resting on the sloped sides of a triangle . The modern spelling would probably be klootkrans. The kloot is a ball used in the game known as klootschieten which could be compared with shotput and bowls.

Stevin assumed the spacing between the balls was fixed and that they could roll on the surface of the sloped planes. The weighted wreath remaining stationary on the sloped planes implied a balance of forces. --Jbergquist (talk) 05:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

In Middle English a clot was a round mass, i.e., a clump of some substance. --Jbergquist (talk) 07:36, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Translations of cloot meaning ball, sphere: modern Dutch, kloot; Swedish, klot (substantiv 7 in Prisma's Swedish-English Dictionary); Danish, klode; Old English, clot. A related English word is cleat. The English reference to clot as a round mass can be found in its etymology in Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary 2nd ed., 1979. Clot may have meant an object cleared of any obstructions. Were the words used as verbs? I don't have an answer for that. --Jbergquist (talk) 23:54, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The corresponding English verb may be clout meaning to strike. The same word is often used as both verb and noun. Compare clog. --Jbergquist (talk) 19:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

al-Kashi

Our page currently speculates that Stevin may have borrowed his decimal ideas from the great mathematician al-Kashi. The source given is McTutor. Here is what McTutor says about Stevin: We mentioned above al-Kashi's use of decimal fractions and it is through his use of these that he has attained considerable fame. The generally held view that Stevin had been the first to introduce decimal fractions was shown to be false in 1948 when P Luckey (see [4]) showed that in the Key to Arithmetic al-Kashi gives as clear a description of decimal fractions as Stevin does. However, to claim that al-Kashi is the inventor of decimal fractions, as was done by many mathematicians following the work of Luckey, would be far from the truth since the idea had been present in the work of several mathematicians of al-Karaji's school, in particular al-Samawal. The source cited in the article does not support the claim of an al-Kashi provenance of Stevin's decimals. Tkuvho (talk) 13:46, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The speculation was added by user Webmail.za here. Tkuvho (talk) 13:52, 24 November 2011 (UTC)