Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
NumPy
Definition
NumPy (Numerical Python) is a library for the Python programming language, adding support for large, multi-dimensional arrays and matrices, along with a large collection of high-level mathematical functions to operate on these arrays.
Why It Matters
NumPy is the foundational package for scientific computing in Python. It provides a highly efficient array object that is the basis for almost all other data science and machine learning libraries, including Pandas, Scikit-learn, and TensorFlow.
Contextual Example
A machine learning engineer needs to perform a fast matrix multiplication operation. They use NumPy arrays, which are implemented in C and are orders of magnitude faster for numerical operations than standard Python lists.
Common Misunderstandings
- The core of NumPy is its `ndarray` (n-dimensional array) object.
- Most data science libraries in Python are built on top of NumPy.