Recalling Forman Acton ’43 *44

I was saddened to see the In Memoriam notice in the March 19 issue regarding the passing of Professor Forman S. Acton ’43 *44 until I remembered the qualities he exemplified. I recall fondly the rigor and vigor of his classes, the clarity of his teaching and training, and his interesting and challenging assignments we programmed and ran on the IBM 360/91 mainframe “supercomputer,” using Fortran IV and punched cards.

He was witty in topic and type. His book, Numerical Methods That Work, had “Usually” embossed but not inked on the front cover. That classic book inspired the authors of the highly regarded Numerical Recipes series, who acknowledged him even though they hadn’t met him. We who did meet Forman Acton were all the more enriched.

Requiescat in pace.