4 ms·

in the nomenclature i’m used to, scalars, vectors, and matrices are all special cases of tensors. ( they have rank 0,1, and 2 respectively). what numpy calls i

in the nomenclature i’m used to, scalars, vectors, and matrices are all special cases of tensors. ( they have rank 0,1, and 2 respectively). what numpy calls it is more or less moot.

kgwgk 7y ago
It's not about what nomenclature numpy uses, it's about the word tensor being used by some people to refer to arrays for no discernible reason at all (except the coolness factor, maybe?).
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  I guess i don't see your point. I'm a biomedical researcher, we do lots of numerical analysis in my part of the world, these are the words we use to unambiguously refer to different entities and concepts of linear algebra. This is not a CS data structures 101 thing, this is a "there are proper names for mathematical entities" thing. I think you're confusing representation and existence, maybe.
  - kgwgk 7y ago
    > "there are proper names for mathematical entities" That's my point. Have you ever used a proper tensor? I mean, the mathematical entity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor
    - hprotagonist 7y ago
      yes, often. This comes up all the time in tissue mechanics, because continuum mechanics turns out to be quite useful for studying the mechanical properties of soft tissue.
      - kgwgk 7y ago
        In that case I think you can easily see my point. Numerical computing has done pretty well since the fifties using just "multidimensional arrays". [Edit: You may care about vector algebra but 99.999% of the users of numerical arrays do not. I just think that the proper term in a general discussion about data structures in numerical computing like the one here is “array”.] [Edit2: in case you’re really not familiar with the abuse of the term, people do now often use the word tensor to talk about multidimensional arrays that have nothing to do with the mathematical entity called tensor. And I don’t think either matlab or python pretend that they have tensors.]

in the nomenclature i’m used to, scalars, vectors, and matrices are all special cases of tensors. ( they have rank 0,1, and 2 respectively). what numpy calls it is more or less moot.

kgwgk 7y ago

It's not about what nomenclature numpy uses, it's about the word tensor being used by some people to refer to arrays for no discernible reason at all (except the coolness factor, maybe?).

hprotagonist 7y ago
I guess i don't see your point. I'm a biomedical researcher, we do lots of numerical analysis in my part of the world, these are the words we use to unambiguously refer to different entities and concepts of linear algebra. This is not a CS data structures 101 thing, this is a "there are proper names for mathematical entities" thing. I think you're confusing representation and existence, maybe.
- kgwgk 7y ago
  > "there are proper names for mathematical entities" That's my point. Have you ever used a proper tensor? I mean, the mathematical entity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor
  - hprotagonist 7y ago
    yes, often. This comes up all the time in tissue mechanics, because continuum mechanics turns out to be quite useful for studying the mechanical properties of soft tissue.
    - kgwgk 7y ago
      In that case I think you can easily see my point. Numerical computing has done pretty well since the fifties using just "multidimensional arrays". [Edit: You may care about vector algebra but 99.999% of the users of numerical arrays do not. I just think that the proper term in a general discussion about data structures in numerical computing like the one here is “array”.] [Edit2: in case you’re really not familiar with the abuse of the term, people do now often use the word tensor to talk about multidimensional arrays that have nothing to do with the mathematical entity called tensor. And I don’t think either matlab or python pretend that they have tensors.]