The MathWorks News & Notes - 2008

Welcome to The MathWorks News & Notes

I recently celebrated my eighteenth anniversary at The MathWorks. In software engineering, eighteen years is approximately equal to forever. When I joined The MathWorks, there was no World Wide Web and no Microsoft Windows, and I was thrilled to get a 30-megabyte hard drive and two megabytes of RAM for my 80386 desktop computer. MATLAB was a DOS command-line program that fit quite comfortably into the 640 kilobytes of memory allowed by the operating system.

Today, MATLAB runs approximately 1000 times faster and can handle data sets that run into the terabytes. This increased power has lead to innovations in just about every field of engineering and science.

Reading the articles in this issue of The MathWorks News & Notes, I felt honored to be part of an engineering community that has helped make the dream of parallel computing a reality and developed tools that mathematically prove the absence of run-time errors in software; a community that is restoring movement to people with neuromuscular damage and developing zero-emission vehicles with fuel cells.

This issue explores the latest in a long history of remarkable engineering achievements. Meanwhile, excerpts from Cleve Moler’s book Experiments with MATLAB remind us how well MATLAB fulfills its original purpose— as a teaching tool that is preparing the next generation of engineers to become the next generation of innovators.

I hope that you enjoy this issue. As always, we are very interested in receiving feedback. Please send your comments via www.mathworks.com/nn8/contact.

Jason Kinchen
Director of Engineering, MATLAB and Math Toolboxes