The third edition of this practical introduction to Python has been thoroughly updated, with all code migrated to Jupyter notebooks. The notebooks are available online with executable versions of all of the book's content (and more). The text starts with a detailed introduction to the basics of the Python language, without assuming any prior knowledge. Building upon each other, the most important Python packages for numerical math (NumPy), symbolic math (SymPy), and plotting (Matplotlib) are introduced, with brand new chapters covering numerical methods (SciPy) and data handling (Pandas). Further new material includes guidelines for writing efficient Python code and publishing code for other users. Simple and concise code examples, revised for compatibility with Python 3, guide the reader and support the learning process throughout the book. Readers from all of the quantitative sciences, whatever their background, will be able to quickly acquire the skills needed for using Python effectively.

Scientific Python is a significant public domain alternative to expensive proprietary software packages. This book teaches from scratch everything the working scientist needs to know using copious, downloadable, useful and adaptable code snippets. Readers will discover how easy it is to implement and test non-trivial mathematical algorithms and will be guided through the many freely available add-on modules. A range of examples, relevant to many different fields, illustrate the language's capabilities. The author also shows how to use pre-existing legacy code (usually in Fortran77) within the Python environment, thus avoiding the need to master the original code. In this new edition, several chapters have been re-written to reflect the IPython notebook style. With an extended index, an entirely new chapter discussing SymPy and a substantial increase in the number of code snippets, researchers and research students will be able to quickly acquire all the skills needed for using Python effectively.