Appendix: A Short Introduction to FORTRAN

So far, this book is unbalanced: The authors who need the computer to think have introduced the reader to the language REDUCE they use; but the two other authors who can already think and who use the computer for simulations have assumed that the reader understands FORTRAN, historically the first higher programming language. A reader experienced in BASIC should be able to learn FORTRAN by simply reading the listed programs. True beginners may learn FORTRAN through the following remarks (the need for which was pointed out to us by J.Adler). Some statements are compared with the corresponding BASIC statements.