Cleve Moler, Who Unlocked the Power of Computing for Millions, Dies at 86
The New York Times • • technology
Key Points:
- Cleve Moler, a pioneering mathematician who developed essential computational tools in the 1970s and 1980s, died on May 20 at age 86 from Parkinson’s disease.
- Moler created EISPACK and LINPACK, libraries of prewritten FORTRAN code that simplified complex scientific calculations, making advanced computing accessible without deep programming knowledge.
- His work helped unlock computing power for diverse fields such as finance, automobile design, and medical imaging by enabling researchers to solve complex quantitative problems more efficiently.
- Moler taught at the University of New Mexico and was motivated by the challenges his students faced with early computing processes, which were slow and required extensive manual coding and input preparation.