Book Image

IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Cyrille Rossant
Book Image

IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Cyrille Rossant

Overview of this book

Python is one of the leading open source platforms for data science and numerical computing. IPython and the associated Jupyter Notebook offer efficient interfaces to Python for data analysis and interactive visualization, and they constitute an ideal gateway to the platform. IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization Cookbook, Second Edition contains many ready-to-use, focused recipes for high-performance scientific computing and data analysis, from the latest IPython/Jupyter features to the most advanced tricks, to help you write better and faster code. You will apply these state-of-the-art methods to various real-world examples, illustrating topics in applied mathematics, scientific modeling, and machine learning. The first part of the book covers programming techniques: code quality and reproducibility, code optimization, high-performance computing through just-in-time compilation, parallel computing, and graphics card programming. The second part tackles data science, statistics, machine learning, signal and image processing, dynamical systems, and pure and applied mathematics.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
IPython Interactive Computing and Visualization CookbookSecond Edition
Contributors
Preface
Index

Finding the equilibrium state of a physical system by minimizing its potential energy


In this recipe, we will give an application example of the function minimization algorithms described earlier. We will try to numerically find the equilibrium state of a physical system by minimizing its potential energy.

More specifically, we'll consider a structure made of masses and springs, attached to a vertical wall and subject to gravity. Starting from an initial position, we'll search for the equilibrium configuration where the gravity and elastic forces compensate.

How to do it...

  1. Let's import NumPy, SciPy, and matplotlib:

    >>> import numpy as np
        import scipy.optimize as opt
        import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
        %matplotlib inline
  2. We define a few constants in the International System of Units:

    >>> g = 9.81  # gravity of Earth
        m = .1  # mass, in kg
        n = 20  # number of masses
        e = .1  # initial distance between the masses
        l = e  # relaxed length of the springs
       ...