 Stevin wrote his "Arithmetic" in 1594.The work brought to the western world for the first time a general solution of the quadratic equation, originally documented nearly a millennium previously by Brahmagupta in India.According to van der Waerden, Stevin eliminated "the classical restriction of 'numbers' to integers (Euclid) or to rational fractions (Diophantos)...the real numbers formed a continuum.