I like the final sentence:
If you can’t do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can’t do it in assembly language, it isn’t worth doing.
A deadly logic…
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Does the Fortran word means something in English? Or is it a family name in Canada or India?
From this page it seems there are (were?) some family named with “Fortran”, but I’ve never met real people with this family name… (btw, “Richard Fortran” looks a bit similar to “Richard Feynman” to me)
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Thanks, it seems also to be a family name in european countries: Sweden, Germany, Spain, France…
or here.
I am not sure of the etymology, but the Latin “fortis” means strong, brave… In French, “fort”. We can also think to the “fortress” word in English.
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I just noticed that the Exercism learning platform adapted the Fortran-lang logo (originally by @jacobwilliams) for their Fortran track. 
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I also just sent a pull request to vscode-icons to update to this logo from the one they had.
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Very interesting @Niko! Source?
Figure 3 of The Ecological Impact of High-performance Computing in Astrophysics. There is also a 2021 preprint Ranking Programming Languages by Energy Efficiency.
I wonder how seriously to take such results. If someone can get results faster in Python, the benefits of their work may outweigh the incremental CO2 production.
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Thanks for sharing the paper. You were faster.
I agree that it is very difficult to measure the impact. It’s not only about the programming, but it also has a strong social component.
Sometimes people using slower languages spend more time optimizing the physical assumptions and indeed get their results faster. On the other hand, some people tend to do number crunching in Python just because they are familiar with it and without being even aware how slow (and time and energy consuming it is).
One may also argue that it’s worse for climate if you get your results quickly because that you would fly around from one meeting to another showing them. 
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SHA-256 implemented in Fortran 2008:
A parody meme that is being recycled all too often now …
Hello Everyone, I found this post today. Happy Birthday Fortran!!! 
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The ancient programming language in which many important algorithms have been written is … Algol 60. Often when I read the documentation of a Fortran 77 library, it says the code was translated from Algol. Unfortunately, structured programming arrived later in FORTRAN than Algol, so the Algol-to-FORTRAN translations resulted in a loss of legibility. I wonder if the important Algol codes have been put online, and if there is an Algol compiler that runs them. A automatic translator of Algol to modern Fortran would be interesting. Translators to FORTRAN IV were developed in the 1960s.
Quoting Eigenvalue computation in the 20th century (2020) by Golub and van der Vorst:
The history of reliable high-quality software for numerical linear algebra started with the book edited by Wilkinson and Reinsch, the Handbook for Automatic Computation , Vol. 2 , Linear Algebra , published in 1971. This book contained a number of articles that had appeared previously in Numerische Mathematik, which described state-of-the-art algorithms for the solution of linear systems and eigenproblems. All these articles contained implementations in Algol60. Most of these algorithms are still alive albeit in other languages. Algol60 was a computer language that gained some popularity in academia, mostly in Europe, but it was not as fast as Fortran on most machines and it did not gain a foothold in the slowly emerging large industrial codes (the majority of which were written in Fortran or even in assembler language).
The site https://www.algol60.org/ may be a good starting point.
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I never got to meet Algol codes at NAG, but I am told that the original NAG Library (1970-71) was developed in both FORTRAN and Algol 68. Jim Wilkinson was a towering figure at the time. The story goes that he was personally thanked by test pilots who recognised that he was largely responsible for saving their lives by making aircraft airframe analysis reliable.
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After returning in 1955, she worked on various computers and projects, gaining particular notice for her expertise in an early programming language called Fortran.
“When Fortran came, it was almost like paradise,” she says. The new programming language was much less laborious than the language used for programming the MANIAC, and it was capable of commands that were impossible before, so programming the calculations was much easier and much faster.
As an early Fortran expert, Tsingou went on to many more career accomplishments, including editing and manipulating the Poisson Group codes.
Source: https://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/national-security-science/2020-winter/mary-tsingou.shtml
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Indeed, Los Alamos has been at the center of many computer advances. Not just the initial MANIAC, but also much later Cray-1 was first installed at Los Alamos. Even later I believe Roadrunner was also the fastest computer in the world. We have a nice museum here with many more details, if anyone comes to visit, I’ll be happy to show you around, just let me know. So LFortran being developed here is natural.
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There is a north-south street called Fortran Drive in San Jose, California, USA. The GPS coordinates 37.422573, -121.957027 can be used on, e.g., Google Maps, to view this street.
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Curiously it is not in a university, but is surrounded by many religious organizations.
Maybe Fortran is part of the logos… Programmers are changing the world, for the best and the worst (Backus would probably agree).
The other day I came across this work:
Surprisingly, apart from the title, Fortran does not really seem to play a role in the thesis, which comes from a Jesuit college.
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