Simon Stevin Quote

Our intention in this Disme is to work all by whole numbers: for sewing that in any affairs, men reckon not of the thousandth part of a mite, grain, &c. as the like is also used of the principal Geometricians, and Astronomers, in computations of great consequence, as Ptolemy & Johannes Monta-regio have not described their Tables of Arches, Chords, or Sines, in extreme perfection (as possibly they might have done by Multinomial numbers,) because that imperfection (considering the scope and end of those Tables) is more convenient then such perfection.

Disme: the Art of Tenths, Or, Decimall Arithmetike (1608)