anyone here know FORTRAN?

While FORTRAN isn't used much anymore, it's the base forerunner of several current numerical control schemes used in 3D and axial coordinate calculations used by high accuracy machinery operations, and in generating control instructions for multiple distributed instrument and precision process control applications, and many more. The numbers required for these kinds of things can be astronomical, and a poor description would be that FORTRAN and its later ilk are a form of "compression" that allows the numbers to be handled faster. One of the simplest applications is a system that uses a system of set numerical intervals for error detection, and the numerical value of the interval becomes the base. Anything that does not conform to the base interval is considered an error and is not applied to the calculation. Does that make sense? Man that really was a piss poor analogy, and it's only one, but outside of school, I've never had to use it for anything beyond converting from base A to Base B, etc. Guess they want you to know how things got where they are.
 
Wow. I haven't used Fortran since grad school. Used it to mathematically model the compressor section of a gas turbine engine. One guy used my code as the basis for his disertation on modeling the entire engine. Boy I'm glad I'm not a code jockey any more. Good luck with your class.
 
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