Linear Algebra with numpy – Part 1

Numpy is a package for scientific computing in Python.

import numpy as np

The most important data structure is ndarray, which is short for n-dimensional array.

You can convert a list to an numpy array with the array-method

my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4]
my_array = np.array(my_list)

You can also convert an array back to a list with

my_new_list = my_array.tolist()

You can retrieve the dimensionality of an array with the ndim property:

my_array.ndim

and get the number of data points with the shape property

my_array.shape

Table of Contents

Vector arithmetic

a = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4])
b = np.array([4, 3, 2, 1])
a + b
array([5, 5, 5, 5])
a - b
array([-3, -1,  1,  3])

a = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4])
a * 3
array([3,  6,  9, 12])

To see why it is charming to use numpy’s array for this operation You have to consider the alternative:

c = [1,2,3,4]
d = [x * 3 for x in c]

a = np.array([1,2,3,4]) 
b = np.array([4,3,2,1])

a.dot(b)

20 # 1*3 + 2*3 + 3*2 + 4*1

Stay tuned for more algebraic stuff with numpy!