Hi all,
On 7/7/06, Travis Oliphant <oli...@ee...> wrote:
>
> I didn't compile the results, but the discussion on the idea of adding
> new attributes to the array object led to the following result.
>
> Added: .T attribute to mean self.transpose()
[...]
> .H
>
> A few were in favor, but this can now be written .T.conj() which is not
> bad so does not get a new attribute.
I didn't have strong feelings one way or another on this, so I didn't
vote, but at this point I'd like to make a comment before the freeze.
Given that .T went in, I'd argue that .H should be in as well.
Basically, I now think these two should have been considered as a
bundle and not as separate options.
The reason isn't (just) my OCD surfacing again, but the fact that the
hermitian conjugate plays /exactly/ the role that transposition plays,
in regards to defining norms and (positive definite) inner products,
when complex arrays are in play.
The fact that numpy has excellent complex support is a major source of
joy for many. I think that having .T but not .H would be a big wart
in this regard. If you are trying to write code for inner products
with complex arrays, the natural language change from real ones is:
dot(A.T,B) -> dot(A.H,B)
For people who play with quantum mechanics this is an everyday need
(self-adjoint operators require expressions like this all the time),
but I suspect its use will be common in any field requiring normed
spaces with complex arrays.
Just my 1e-2j
Cheers,
f
|
