Summary

Python offers built-in support for mathematics with some basic numerical types, arithmetic, and basic mathematical functions. However, for more serious computations involving large arrays of numerical values, you should use the NumPy and SciPy packages. NumPy provides high-performance array types and basic routines, while SciPy provides more specific tools for solving equations and working with sparse matrices (among many other things).

NumPy arrays can be multi-dimensional. In particular, two-dimensional arrays have matrix properties that can be accessed using the linalg module from either NumPy or SciPy (the former is a subset of the latter). Moreover, there is a special operator in Python for matrix multiplication, @, which is implemented for NumPy arrays.

In the next chapter, we'll get started looking at some recipes.