"Positional numeration had been in full use for many centuries before it was realized that among the advantages of the method was its great facility in handling fractions. Even then the realization was far from complete, as may be gleaned from the cumbersome superscripts and subscripts used by Stevin and Napier. ...all that was necessary to bring the scheme to full effectiveness was a mark such as our modern decimal point... Yet... the innovators... with the exception of Kepler and Briggs, either did not recognize this fact, or else had no faith that they could induce the public to accept it. Indeed, a century after Stevin's discovery, a historian... remarked Quod homines tot sententiae (As many opinions as there are people), and it took another century before decimal notation was finally stabilized and the superfluous symbols dropped. [Included table indicates Simon Stevin's notation for 24.375 was: 24 3^{(1)} 7^{(2)} 5^{(3)}.]"