I remember a McCracken Fortran book, though I don't remember By the time I was learning Fortran, in 1972, I don't I did wonder how easy it was to find Fortran books in the public > the programming language Fortran she soon becomes nasa’s > (a segregated library from which she’s thrown out), in which she’ll learn > A gifted technician, Dorothy seeks out a book from the local library > entire department of human “computers” will soon be replaced by an > against the backdrop of the civil-rights movement. > Dorothy’s pursuit of a formal promotion to supervisor also takes place It's great to see Fortran continuing to play a significant role at NASA Langley more than five decades after the scenes in the movie. industry, the Department of Defense, and academia.' The page goes on to mention 'A past FUN3D collaboration with the Department of Energy received the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize for outstanding achievements in high-performance computing.' 'FUN3D is widely used to support major national research and engineering efforts, both within NASA and among groups across U.S. Here's a quote from a FUN3D description at the URL below: Several of the people who attended my course work on the FUN3D computational fluid dynamics Fortran package. I taught a modern Fortran class there in 2014 and Walt Brainerd has taught several modern Fortran classes there. Fortran still plays a major role at NASA Langley. It's also especially nice to know that Katherine Gobel Johnson, who inspired the main character, is still alive at 98 and NASA Langley is building a new computational sciences facility that will be named after her. On that trip to the library, in the company of her two sons on the cusp of adolescence, they witness a protest by civil-rights activists chanting “segregation must go” and see police officers, with police dogs, approaching the protesters. A gifted technician, Dorothy seeks out a book from the local library (a segregated library from which she’s thrown out), in which she’ll learn the programming language Fortran she soon becomes nasa’s resident expert. She learns that her entire department of human “computers” will soon be replaced by an electronic computer-an enormous I.B.M. The movie is set mainly in 19, in Virginia, where a key nasa research center was (and is) based, and the movie is aptly and thoroughly derisive toward the discriminatory laws and practices that prevailed at the time.ĭorothy’s pursuit of a formal promotion to supervisor also takes place against the backdrop of the civil-rights movement.

The basic virtue of “Hidden Figures” (which opens on December 25th), and it’s a formidable one, is to proclaim with a clarion vibrancy that, were it not for the devoted, unique, and indispensable efforts of three black women scientists, the United States might not have successfully sent people into space or to the moon and back. HIDDEN FIGURES” IS A SUBTLE AND POWERFUL WORK OF COUNTER-HISTORY One of the most popular current movies, 'Hidden Figures', has a Fortran angle:

Hidden figures book signing