eka-foundation/numerical-computing-is-fun

Learning numerical computing with notebooks for all ages.

As much as this series is to educate aspiring computer programmers and data scientists of all ages and all backgrounds, it is also a reminder to myself. After playing with computers and numbers for nearly 4 decades, I’ve also made this to keep in mind how to have fun with computers and maths.

Using Jupyter notebooks as an interactive learning medium, this series provides an introduction to:

• Computer Science
• Python programming language
• Numerical computing
• Numbers theory
• Prime numbers
• Data visualization
• Deep learning

Interactive in Mybinder:

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Part 1 : Introduction

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What you will learn:

• print is the command to print something on the screen
• Math operations are very easy to perform in Python
• Python deals with numbers based on data types
• In Python there are two numerical data types; int and float
• Functions are powerful tools to easily perform various operations
• Functions may accept arguments (parameters) as input
• Functions are computer processes, and arguments are what is being processed
• It’s very easy to create your own functions

Part 2 : Prime Numbers

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What you will learn:

• Prime numbers relate with divisibility
• Divisibility means that when one number is divided by other, the product is not a whole number
• A prime number is any number that is divisible only by itself and 1
• Binary means 0 and 1
• Boolean logic is the binary language of computers
• Python gives us an easy to use way to instruct computers
• Boolean logic statements involve is, is not, and and or statements
• Boolean statements can be joined together
• Boolean statements always return either True or False as output
• It’s easy to perform computing operations with small numbers
• The biggest prime number is a really big number
• Very big numbers require vast networks of computers joined together

Part 3 : Algorithms Overview

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What you will learn:

• Algoritms are like insides of factories
• Algoritms process inputs to produce outputs
• Conditional statements are a tool for putting boolean logic in to action
• Conditional statements are part of “flow control”
• Flow controls give us the ability to create rules for computer programs
• The three conditional statements in Python are if, else and elif
• Even just if alone can be used to create a conditional statement

Part 4: Automation Overview

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What you will learn:

• Generally speaking computer programs are focused on process automation
• Loops are a highly effective method for automation
• With small changes to our code, we can make big improvements in capability
• Sometimes we can get more done with less code!
• It’s very convinient to store values in to memory
• Computer memory is nothing like human memory, and also not like a safe deposit box
• Any value can be stored in to memory
• Numbers can be automatically generated with range function
• It’s meaningful to learn new concepts by gradually improving things

CREDITS

Numerical Computing is Fun is an Eka Foundation project.