"The first systematic discussion of decimal fractions with full appreciation of their significance was given by Simon Stevin... His work in Flemish, entitled La Thiende... was republished again in 1585 in French with the title La Disme; in 1608 an English translation by Robert Norton, The Art of Tenths or Decimall Arithmetike, appeared in London. This work is addressed to astronomers, surveyors, masters of money (of the mint), and to all merchants. ...All Stevin says applies today, hardly with a change of letter. ...The immediate application of decimal fractions was made particularly to the trigonometric functions and to logarithms"