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I was surprised when I first saw the word "tensor" being thrown around by computer scientists to apparently mean just multi-dimensional array. But then I thoug
by zazen 9y ago
I was surprised when I first saw the word "tensor" being thrown around by computer scientists to apparently mean just multi-dimensional array. But then I thought, well, "vector" is very widely used - including by mathematicians - to mean simply an nx1 or 1xn array, rather than an object which transforms a certain way under coordinate tranformations. So in the same way, I suppose we really might as well use "tensor" to mean "just" a multi-dimensional array of numbers, in contexts where coordinate transformations aren't important. Mathematical physics can continue to use the other definition where necessary, just as it does for vectors.
- dragandj 9y agoThe trouble with that approach is that in CS, tensors are mostly used in machine learning, which is very math-dependent. So, you read in a textbook or a paper that something can be done elegantly by using some linear algebra operation, or some transformation on a tensor, and are delighted, because your library says to be tensor-based, but, then, when you try to code it, whoops; you meant you had tensor support, but all you've got is a multidimensional array memory layout...