NumPy

NumPy, which is Travis Oliphant's creation, is the true analytical workhorse of the Python language. It provides the user with multidimensional arrays, along with a large set of functions to operate a multiplicity of mathematical operations on these arrays. Arrays are blocks of data that are arranged along multiple dimensions, which implement mathematical vectors and matrices. Characterized by optimal memory allocation, arrays are useful—not just for storing data, but also for fast matrix operations (vectorization), which are indispensable when you wish to solve ad hoc data science problems:

• Website: http://www.numpy.org/
• Version at the time of print: 1.12.1
• Suggested install command: pip install numpy

As a convention largely adopted by the Python community, when importing NumPy, it is suggested that you alias it as np:

import numpy as np

We will be doing this throughout the course of this book.