proceedings

FOREWORD
ASCIENTIFIC COMPUTATION FORUM, sponsored by the
International Business Machines Corporation, was
held in the IBM Department of Education, Endicott,
New York, from August 23 to August 26, 1948. The
Forum concluded with two sessions held in New York
City on August 27.
Earlier meetings in this senes, which began in
1940, were devoted largely to statistical procedures. In
the 1948 Forum, for the first time, an attempt was made
to cover many of the fields in which large-scale com­
puting methods have proved important. The exchange
of ideas between workers in fields as diverse as aero­
dynamics and physical chemistry proved fruitful from
the very beginning, yet specialists in the same field also
found time for intensive discussions.
It is hoped that the contributions printed here
will prove of value not only to the participants but to
other members of the growing group engaged in tech­
nical calculations on punched card equipment.