Basic Math (Python)

This tutorial module surveys some of the basic math functions in Python.

We can perform a mathematical operation on any numeric data type:

5 + 5
> 10

1.2 - 4
> -2.8

4 * 4
> 16

120 / 12.5
> 9.6

Some additional functions include min (minimum) and max (maximum), which return the lowest and highest values in a sequence:

min([0, 5, 2, -4, 1])
> -4

max([10, 20, 30, 40, 50])
> 50

You can use len to find the length of a list:

len([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])
> 7

Further functions include abs (absolute value), % (modulo), and pow (exponentiation):

abs(-17)
> 17

60 % 12
> 0

pow(2, 3)
> 8

Use parentheses to define order of operations:

(1 + 23) % 12
> 0

1 + 23 % 12
> 12

Any of these operations can be conducted on numeric variables:

a = 2
b = 3

a + b
> 5

Or on individual numeric elements of a list (remember that index numbers count from zero and should be placed in brackets):

my_list = [5, 3, 9, 7]

my_list[2] / my_list[1]
> 3.0

Just be aware that lists themselves do not respond to mathematical operations in the same way:

my_list + my_list
> [5, 3, 9, 7, 5, 3, 9, 7]

In order to perform operations with lists, consider using a for loop to iterate over the elements in the list.