What the FORTRAN is ** Doing in Python ?

03:00 PM - 03:25 PM on August 16, 2015, Room 704

en zyme

Audience level:

novice

Watch:

http://youtu.be/SD74lIvddcQ

Description

Exponentiation is just extended multiplication, or is it? Only up to a point. In reality, Real numbers don't really exist, there are only a finite number of Integers, negative zero is not always the same as positive zero, and Complex numbers really are. All of which make exponentiation both subtle and computationally expensive. A retrospective and prospective of the intricacies of reification of 'number' and the occasional futility of mathematical operations in particular, **.

Abstract

Use cases and examples of operations and functions related to exponentiation (e.g. power, square root, logarithm, hyperbolic cosine) will be drawn from Python and contrasted with FORTRAN, C, Julia. Implementations within Python will be compared and viewed through the lenses of CPython, NumPy, SciPy, Numba, PyPy and the reductive demands of TOO MUCH DATA.