"In the... fifteenth century, the sexagesimal division of the radius, in terms of which cords and goniametrical line-segments were expressed, was generally superseded, though not immediately replaced, by a decimal system of positional notation. Instead, mathematicians sought to avoid fractions by taking the Radius equal to a number of units of length of the form 10^n...The first to apply this method was the German astronomer Regiomontanus... the second half of the sixteenth and the first decades of the seventeenth century... observed of a gradual development of this method of Regiomontanus into a complete system of decimal positional fractions. Yet none of the steps taken by... writers is comparable in importance and scope with the progress achieved by Stevin in his De Thiende."
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E.J. Dijksterhuis, Simon Stevin: Science in the Netherlands around 1600 (2012) pp. 17-18.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Simon_Stevin
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Simon Stevin
1548 – 1620
(1548–1620), sometimes called Stevinus, was a Flemish mathematician, physicist and military engineer. He was active in a great many areas of science and engineering, both theoretical and practical.
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