Celebrating 70 Years of Fortran
The Institute of Computing for Climate Science is hosting an event in Manchester on December 1, 2026, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Fortran programming language. The workshop will feature retrospectives and discussions on the future of the language in scientific computing.
Why it matters
Fortran remains a foundational tool for critical scientific research, including climate modeling and nuclear engineering, making its legacy and future relevant to modern technology.
Joe Wallwork, Institute of Computing for Climate Science, University of Cambridge, jw2423@cam.ac.uk
One month from today (15th October) marks seventy years since the first Fortran manual was published, making it an extremely well established programming language for scientific computing.
Over Fortran’s seven decades of usage, it has supported critical infrastructure and technological advances in a range of scientific fields such as nuclear engineering, weather and climate forecasting, and materials science. Fortran continues to be the go-to language in these domains and others.
To celebrate Fortran’s outstanding contributions to advancing science and engineering, the Institute of Computing for Climate Science (ICCS) will be hosting a ‘Celebrating 70 years of Fortran’ event at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, United Kingdom, on 1st December 2026.
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