Hey everyone,
I'm diving into some theoretical questions around calculating the scalar product using lists of coordinates. I have two lists:
a = [(1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6)]
b = [(7, 8), (9, 10), (11, 12)]
From what I understand, I could implement the scalar product like this:
`def scalar_product(x, y):`
` return [sum(sum(i * j for i, j in zip(m, n)) for m, n in zip(x, y))]`
But I'm wondering if this is common in real programming practice. Should I instead be writing it like:
`def scalar_product(x, y):`
` return [sum(i * j for i, j in zip(m, n)) for m, n in zip(x, y)]`? What are your thoughts?
5 Answers
In practical programming, people usually use libraries like NumPy or torch for this sort of calculation. Pure Python is fine for learning, but in real apps, you'd definitely want to stick to optimized libraries!
I think both versions you've written are completely valid based on what you want to achieve. If you’re calculating the scalar product of two full vectors, go with your first option. If you aim for a scalar product per pair, then the second is better. Personally, I would just use NumPy for a cleaner solution!
It seems your assignment might be tricky; there’s definitely some information missing. The question lacks clarity on how to interpret the data. Best to ask your instructor for more context!
The concept of scalar multiplication applied to each element could refer to the Hadamard product, which is technically different since it returns an element-wise product and not a scalar. Just clarify what you need to compute!
The interpretation of `a` and `b` really drives the answer here. Your first function implements the Frobenius inner product, treating `a` and `b` as matrices. The second one just computes a pointwise inner product, treating them as lists of vectors. You could also consider `a` and `b` as accumulated coordinates, which changes the output entirely!
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