Book Image

Scientific Computing with Python - Second Edition

By : Claus Führer, Jan Erik Solem, Olivier Verdier
Book Image

Scientific Computing with Python - Second Edition

By: Claus Führer, Jan Erik Solem, Olivier Verdier

Overview of this book

Python has tremendous potential within the scientific computing domain. This updated edition of Scientific Computing with Python features new chapters on graphical user interfaces, efficient data processing, and parallel computing to help you perform mathematical and scientific computing efficiently using Python. This book will help you to explore new Python syntax features and create different models using scientific computing principles. The book presents Python alongside mathematical applications and demonstrates how to apply Python concepts in computing with the help of examples involving Python 3.8. You'll use pandas for basic data analysis to understand the modern needs of scientific computing, and cover data module improvements and built-in features. You'll also explore numerical computation modules such as NumPy and SciPy, which enable fast access to highly efficient numerical algorithms. By learning to use the plotting module Matplotlib, you will be able to represent your computational results in talks and publications. A special chapter is devoted to SymPy, a tool for bridging symbolic and numerical computations. By the end of this Python book, you'll have gained a solid understanding of task automation and how to implement and test mathematical algorithms within the realm of scientific computing.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
20
About Packt
22
References

10. 1 A guiding example: Solar cells

To describe pandas in the best way, we need data. Thus, in this chapter, we will use production data from solar cell panels on the roof of a private house in the south of Sweden.

In the file solarWatts.dat there is data about the electricity production in watts per minute. A semicolon is used as a data separator and the first line in the file is a header line, explaining the content of the data columns:

Date;Watt
:
2019-10-20 08:22:00 ; 44.0
2019-10-20 08:23:00 ; 61.0
2019-10-20 08:24:00 ; 42.0
:

In another file, price.dat, we find the hourly electricity production price in Swedish crowns. The file is otherwise organized as before:

Date;SEK
2019-10-20 01:00 ; 0.32
2019-10-20 02:00 ; 0.28
2019-10-20 03:00 ; 0.29
:

Finally, in a third file, rates.dat, we find the daily conversion rates from Swedish crowns to Euros (€):

Date;Euro_SEK
2019-10-21 ; 10.7311
2019-10-22 ; 10.7303
2019-10-23 ; 10.7385
:

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