"The first conception of a changing conception of number are found in Regiomontanus. He was a man who still stood with one foot in the world of the Ancients, and hence considered numbers as arithmoi, or sets of units. However... the other foot... stood firmly in the modern world, as all magnitudes are quantities 'that are measured in relation to a certain unit'. According to Regiomontanus... 'it is better to approximate the truth, than to ignore it.' With Stevin, this reluctance disappears altogether. His definition of number builds on Regiomontanus, but it was also revolutionary, for he dropped the classical definition altogether and accepted the modern notion: "Nombre est cela par lequel s'explique la quantité de chascune chose," [Number is that by which the quantity of each thing is revealed,] "nombre n'est poinct quantité discontinue" [number is not at all disontinuous quantity] and "que l'unité est nombre" [the unit is a number]. Stevin did not consider numbers as a discontinuous spectrum, but as a continuum"