NumPy Tutorial - NumPy Math Operation and Broadcasting

1. NumPy Arithmetic Operation
2. NumPy Broadcasting

We’ll cover operations in NumPy in this chapter, like basic arithmetic operations and matrix operations.

Let’s start with basic arithmetic operation.

NumPy Arithmetic Operation

Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are the most basic arithmetic operations in NumPy. They are similar to normal arithmetic operations between numbers.

import numpy as np

arrayA = np.array([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]])
arrayB = arrayA.T
# array([[1, 2, 3],
#       [4, 5, 6],
#       [7, 8, 9]])

arrayB = arrayA.T
# array([[1, 4, 7],
#       [2, 5, 8],
#       [3, 6, 9]])

arrayA + arrayB
# array([[ 2,  6, 10],
#       [ 6, 10, 14],
#       [10, 14, 18]])

arrayA - arrayB
# array([[ 0, -2, -4],
#       [ 2,  0, -2],
#       [ 4,  2,  0]])

arrayA * arrayB
# array([[ 1,  8, 21],
#       [ 8, 25, 48],
#       [21, 48, 81]])

arrayA / arrayB
# array([[1.        , 0.5       , 0.42857143],
#       [2.        , 1.        , 0.75      ],
#       [2.33333333, 1.33333333, 1.        ]])

It should be noted that the matrix multiplication operation - *, multiplies the elements at the same position on the two arrays to get the element in the same position of the result array. It is not the dot product of two given arrays that should be calculated with np.dot method.

np.dot(arrayA, arrayB)
# array([[ 14,  32,  50],
#       [ 32,  77, 122],
#       [ 50, 122, 194]])

NumPy Broadcasting

Two arrays should have the same shape in the array math operation. But NumPy introduces the concept of broadcasting to autofill the array if possible when two arrays don’t have the same shape.

Let me explain this concept with examples,

import numpy as np

arrayA = np.array([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]])
arrayA + 1
# array([[ 2,  3,  4],
#       [ 5,  6,  7],
#       [ 8,  9, 10]])

Here, 1 is added to all the elements of arrayA, or in other words, 1 is broadcasted from the shape (1, 1) to the same shape of arrayA - (3, 3) to make the array addition operation possible.

The actual operation is as below,

arrayA + np.array([[1, 1, 1], [1, 1, 1], [1, 1, 1]])

Broadcasting in NumPy could also be used in below scenarios,

Two Arrays Has the Same Length in One Dimension, and One Array Has the Length as 1 in the Other Dimension

Let’s start with one example,

arrayC = np.array([10, 11, 12])
arrayA + arrayC
# array([[11, 13, 15],
#       [14, 16, 18],
#       [17, 19, 21]])

The shape of arrayA is (3, 3) and the shape of arrayC is (3, 1). It meets the criteria of array dimensions, and the data on the single row in arrayC will be broadcasted to three rows to match the shape of arrayA.

It is also applicable if two arrays has the same length of row.

arrayD = np.array([[10], [11], [12]])
# array([[10],
#       [11],
#       [12]])
arrayA + arrayD
# array([[11, 12, 13],
#       [15, 16, 17],
#       [19, 20, 21]])