Page "Metric system" Paragraph 52

In 1586, the Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin published a small pamphlet called De Thiende (" the tenth ").

Decimal fractions had been employed for the extraction of square roots some five centuries before his time, but nobody used decimal numbers in daily life.

Stevin declared that using decimals was so important that the universal introduction of decimal weights, measures and coinage was only a matter of time.