I wrote an old (and verbose) blog [1] about why I think Lisp is very suitable for heavy science – in my case Operations Research. In fact, the algorithm powering routific.com is written in it.
The key point is that if you were to map out different languages along the abstraction level, Lisp sits right in between the realms of low-level programming (e.g. Java) and modelling (e.g. Matlab). [2]
EDIT: added link to the image of languages along the axis of abstraction level
The key point is that if you were to map out different languages along the abstraction level, Lisp sits right in between the realms of low-level programming (e.g. Java) and modelling (e.g. Matlab). [2]
EDIT: added link to the image of languages along the axis of abstraction level
[1] https://kuomarc.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/the-uncommon-lisp-a...
[2] https://kuomarc.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/level-of-or-appr...