Skip to main content

list manipulation - How to understand the usage of Inner and Outer figuratively?


Description:


In Mathematica the functions like Thread, Inner, Outer etc. are very important and are used frequently.


For the function Thread:


Thread Usage1:


Thread[f[{a, b, c}]]



{f[a], f[b], f[c]}

Thread Usage2:


Thread[f[{a, b, c}, x]]


{f[a, x], f[b, x], f[c, x]}

Thread Usage3:



Thread[f[{a, b, c}, {x, y, z}]]


{f[a, x], f[b, y], f[c, z]}

And I understand the Usage1, Usage2, Usage3 easily as well as I use them masterly.


However I always cannot master the usage of Inner and Outer so that I must refer to the Mathematica Documentation every time when I feel I need using them.


I find that I cannot master them owing to that I cannot understand the results of Inner and Outer clearly. Namely, I always forget what construct they generate when executed.


The typical usage cases of Inner and Outer shown as below:




Inner Usage:


Inner[f, {a, b}, {x, y}, g]


g[f[a, x], f[b, y]]

Inner[f, {{a, b}, {c, d}}, {x, y}, g]


{g[f[a, x], f[b, y]], g[f[c, x], f[d, y]]}


Inner[f, {{a, b}, {c, d}}, {{x, y}, {u, v}}, g]


{{g[f[a, x], f[b, u]], g[f[a, y], f[b, v]]}, 
 {g[f[c, x], f[d, u]], g[f[c, y], f[d, v]]}}

Outer Usage:


Outer[f, {a, b}, {x, y, z}]



{{f[a, x], f[a, y], f[a, z]}, {f[b, x], f[b, y], f[b, z]}}

Outer[f, {{1, 2}, {3, 4}}, {{a, b}, {c, d}}]


{{{{f[1, a], f[1, b]}, {f[1, c], f[1, d]}}, 
  {{f[2, a], f[2, b]}, {f[2, c], f[2, d]}}}, 
 {{{f[3, a], f[3, b]}, {f[3, c], f[3, d]}}, 
  {{f[4, a], f[4, b]}, {f[4, c], f[4, d]}}}}


Questions:




  1. How to master the usage Inner and Outer? Namely, how can I use them without referring to the Mathematica Documentation?




  2. How to understand the result of Out[3],Out[4],Out[5] figuratively? Namely, by using graphics or other way.






Answer



I think of Outer just like nikie showed.


Inner is a generalization of matrix multiplication. I like the picture from the Wikipedia page.


Matrix Multiplication


To calculate an entry of matrix multiplication, you first pair list entries (a11,b12) and (a12,b22). You "times/multiply" those pairs (a11*b12) and (a12*b22), and then you "plus/add" all the results (a11*b12)+(a12*b22). Note that you "times" before you "plus" in matrix multiplication which helps me remember the order of arguments for Inner.


listL={{a11,a12},{a21,a22},{a31,a32},{a41,a42}};
listR={{b11,b12,b13},{b21,b22,b23}};
Inner[times,listL,listR,plus]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

functions - Get leading series expansion term?

Given a function f[x] , I would like to have a function leadingSeries that returns just the leading term in the series around x=0 . For example: leadingSeries[(1/x + 2)/(4 + 1/x^2 + x)] x and leadingSeries[(1/x + 2 + (1 - 1/x^3)/4)/(4 + x)] -(1/(16 x^3)) Is there such a function in Mathematica? Or maybe one can implement it efficiently? EDIT I finally went with the following implementation, based on Carl Woll 's answer: lds[ex_,x_]:=( (ex/.x->(x+O[x]^2))/.SeriesData[U_,Z_,L_List,Mi_,Ma_,De_]:>SeriesData[U,Z,{L[[1]]},Mi,Mi+1,De]//Quiet//Normal) The advantage is, that this one also properly works with functions whose leading term is a constant: lds[Exp[x],x] 1 Answer Update 1 Updated to eliminate SeriesData and to not return additional terms Perhaps you could use: leadingSeries[expr_, x_] := Normal[expr /. x->(x+O[x]^2) /. a_List :> Take[a, 1]] Then for your examples: leadingSeries[(1/x + 2)/(4 + 1/x^2 + x), x] leadingSeries[Exp[x], x] leadingSeries[(1/x + 2 + (1 - 1/x...
Post a Comment
Read more

mathematical optimization - Minimizing using indices, error: Part::pkspec1: The expression cannot be used as a part specification

I want to use Minimize where the variables to minimize are indices pointing into an array. Here a MWE that hopefully shows what my problem is. vars = u@# & /@ Range[3]; cons = Flatten@ { Table[(u[j] != #) & /@ vars[[j + 1 ;; -1]], {j, 1, 3 - 1}], 1 vec1 = {1, 2, 3}; vec2 = {1, 2, 3}; Minimize[{Total@((vec1[[#]] - vec2[[u[#]]])^2 & /@ Range[1, 3]), cons}, vars, Integers] The error I get: Part::pkspec1: The expression u[1] cannot be used as a part specification. >> Answer Ok, it seems that one can get around Mathematica trying to evaluate vec2[[u[1]]] too early by using the function Indexed[vec2,u[1]] . The working MWE would then look like the following: vars = u@# & /@ Range[3]; cons = Flatten@{ Table[(u[j] != #) & /@ vars[[j + 1 ;; -1]], {j, 1, 3 - 1}], 1 vec1 = {1, 2, 3}; vec2 = {1, 2, 3}; NMinimize[ {Total@((vec1[[#]] - Indexed[vec2, u[#]])^2 & /@ R...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to remap graph properties?

Graph objects support both custom properties, which do not have special meanings, and standard properties, which may be used by some functions. When importing from formats such as GraphML, we usually get a result with custom properties. What is the simplest way to remap one property to another, e.g. to remap a custom property to a standard one so it can be used with various functions? Example: Let's get Zachary's karate club network with edge weights and vertex names from here: http://nexus.igraph.org/api/dataset_info?id=1&format=html g = Import[ "http://nexus.igraph.org/api/dataset?id=1&format=GraphML", {"ZIP", "karate.GraphML"}] I can remap "name" to VertexLabels and "weights" to EdgeWeight like this: sp[prop_][g_] := SetProperty[g, prop] g2 = g // sp[EdgeWeight -> (PropertyValue[{g, #}, "weight"] & /@ EdgeList[g])] // sp[VertexLabels -> (# -> PropertyValue[{g, #}, "name"]...
Post a Comment
Read more