Simon Stevin - Discoveries and Inventions

Discoveries and Inventions

His claims to fame are varied. His contemporaries were most struck by his invention of a so-called land yacht, a carriage with sails, of which a little model was preserved in Scheveningen until 1802. The carriage itself had been lost long before. Around the year 1600 Stevin, with Prince Maurice of Orange and twenty-six others, made use of it on the beach between Scheveningen and Petten. The carriage was propelled solely by the force of wind, and acquired a speed which exceeded that of horses.

Read more about this topic:  Simon Stevin

Famous quotes containing the words discoveries and/or inventions:

    Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.
    Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)

    I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)