Scientific Python

The Python math module has asin, acos, and atan methods. NumPy has arcsin, arccos, and arctan.

New post: Embedded regex flags johndcook.com/blog/2026/03/2…

'Knowing is not enough; we must apply.' -- Goethe

Climate data analysis tools uvcdat.llnl.gov

Overview of Bessel functions in SciPy johndcook.com/blog/bessel_py…

Save a figure to file using plt.savefig with filename. File format is inferred from name. E.g. plt.savefig('foo.png') saves as PNG.

Scientific Python lecture notes scipy-lectures.github.io/index.html

Can use scipy.integrate.quad(f, a, b) to integrate f(x) from a to b. Limits could be infinite, e.g. quad(f, -inf, inf).

numpy.linspace(a, b, c) creates an array of c evenly spaced points starting with a and ending with b.

With Python code x.com/AlgebraFact/st…

NumPy arrays have methods sum(), mean(), var(), and std() for simple statistics.

Matplotlib labels can take TeX strings, e.g. plt.xlabel(r'$\sqrt{x}$')

The Python optimization ladder cemrehancavdar.com/2026/03/10/opt…

Probability distributions in SciPy johndcook.com/blog/2009/07/2…

SciPy has optimized versions of Bessel functions of order 0 and 1. For example, j0(z) & j1(z) are faster versions of jn(0, z) & jn(1,z).

Can read strings like files with StringIO docs.python.org/3/library/io.h… // very useful for testing

BLAS: Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms netlib.org/blas/

Planet SciPy blog: planet.scipy.org

The Blaze Ecosystem blaze.pydata.org

Why does the following code not print sqrt(x**2 - 1)? >>> from sympy import * >>> x = symbols('x') >>> print( simplify(sinh(acosh(x))) ) sqrt(x - 1)*sqrt(x + 1) There's a good reason. johndcook.com/blog/2026/03/1…