Simon Stevin (1548/49 - 1620) was a Flemish mathematician and military engineer. He was active in a great many areas of science and engineering, both theoretical and practical. He also translated various mathematical terms into Dutch, making it one of the few European languages in which the word for mathematics, wiskunde ("the art of what is certain"), was not derived from Greek. Stevin's goal was to bring about a second age of wisdom, in which mankind would have recovered all of its earlier knowledge.