Linear Algebra in Data Science

- Overview

Linear Algebra in data science offers essential tools for interacting with data in numerous approaches, understanding relationships between variables, performing dimensionality reduction, and solving systems of equations. Linear algebra techniques, including matrix operations and eigenvalue decomposition, are commonly used for tasks such as regression, clustering, and machine learning algorithms.

Linear algebra (LA) is considered the most important math skill in machine learning (ML). Most machine learning models can be expressed as matrices, and datasets are often represented as matrices. 

Linear algebra can also help with understanding statistics. Statistics are important for ML to effectively organize and integrate data. 

To excel in data science, it’s essential to have a strong grasp of linear algebra because it underpins many of the mathematical and computational techniques used to analyze and extract insights from data.

- Linear Algebra in Python

Python has several libraries that can be used for linear algebra, including NumPy, SciPy, and SymPy:

• NumPy: (Numerical Python) can be used for linear algebra computations
• SciPy: (Scientific Python) can be used for linear algebra with the scipy.linalg module. This module can be used to calculate matrix inverses and determinants, solve least squares problems, and build models using least squares.
• SymPy: (Symbolic Python) can be used for symbolic computation, such as solving algebra problems

There are many ways to run python code. For example, installing Anaconda provides easy access to the Spyder integrated development environment and Ipython Notebook (now called Jupyter).

• The Spyder integrated development environment. The major advantage of Spyder is that it provides a graphical way for viewing matrices, vectors, and other objects you want to check as you work on a problem. It also has the most intuitive way of debugging code.
• The Ipython Notebook (now called Jupyter). The major advantage of this approach is that you use your web browser for all of your python work and you can mix code, videos, notes, graphics from the web, and mathematical notation to tell the whole story of your python project.

[More to come ...]