I'm ignorant of numerical computing, so I have to ask: is Fortran still used because it is that much faster than C or any other specialized language? I assume that is the case because I'm sure someone would have rewritten those routines by now otherwise.
Fortran still is the language for numerical computing, most algorithms in this area have been implemented in Fortran. And this is very specialized code that has been test by experts in their areas. That's why a project like SciPy cannot simply replace it with something written in C or Python.
I'm ignorant of numerical computing, so I have to ask: is Fortran still used because it is that much faster than C or any other specialized language? I assume that is the case because I'm sure someone would have rewritten those routines by now otherwise.