Scientific Python is a significant public domain alternative to expensive proprietary software packages. Python for Scientists teaches from scratch everything the working scientist needs to know using copious, downloadable, useful and adaptable code snippets. Readers will discover how easy it is to implement and test non-trivial mathematical algorithms and will be guided through the many freely available add-on modules. A range of examples, relevant to many different fields, illustrate the language's capabilities. The author also shows how to use pre-existing legacy code (usually in Fortran77) within the Python environment, thus avoiding the need to master the original code. In this new edition, several chapters have been re-written to reflect the IPython notebook style. With an extended index, an entirely new chapter discussing SymPy and a substantial increase in the number of code snippets, researchers and research students will be able to quickly acquire all the skills needed for using Python effectively.
1. Introduction
2. Getting started with IPython
3. A short Python tutorial
4. NumPy
5. Two-dimensional graphics
6. Multi-dimensional graphics
7. SymPy, a computer algebra system
8. Ordinary differential equations
9. Partial differential equations - a pseudospectral approach
10. Case study - multigrid
Appendix A. Installing a Python environment
Appendix B. Fortran77 subroutines for pseudospectral methods
References
Hints for using the index
Index
John M. Stewart was Emeritus Reader in Gravitational Physics at the University of Cambridge, and a Life Fellow at King's College, Cambridge before his death in 2016. He was the author of Non-Equilibrium Relativistic Kinetic Theory (1971) and Advanced General Relativity (1991), and he translated and edited Hans Stephani's General Relativity (1990).
Reviews of the first edition:
"[...] the practitioner who wants to learn Python will love it. This is the type of book I have been looking for to learn Python [...] concise, yet practical."
– Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society (euro-math-soc.eu)
"[...] I still think the conciseness of the book is a major asset. It provides just enough to get you started with the language if you are already familiar with some computer programming or with a system like Maple or Mathematica."
– Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society (euro-math-soc.eu)
"I highly recommend this book as a practical guide to real-life scientific programming. The book is well written, interspersed with great humor, and is presented from the viewpoint of a researcher who wants others to avoid suffering the same pitfalls and mistakes that he experienced."
– Andreas Rueger, The Leading Edge