An introduction to Vectors for Linear Algebra

I've been doing Machine Learning (ML) and Data Science (DS) to various degrees of success for at least 5 years. If you add Business Intelligence (BI) and Databases and SQL into the mix add another 10 years. One thing that's always bugged me, that little voice in the back of my head, was that I had, at best, a fleeting grasp of the maths involved. Especially in relation to machine learning. So I've finally decided to try and do something about it.

What are my options:

1. Take a course
2. Read a book
3. My own path

Taking courses and reading books are great but I cheat. I'll watch the video, read the chapter and then decide that I don't need to do the sample exercises because I either think that I knew it all and didn't need to complete the exercises or, more likely, they looked hard and might actually take some time. So I usually bail.

So option 3, taking my own path. My plan is to the take the excellent Khan Academy courses on:

• Linear Algebra
• Calculus
  • Calculus 1
  • Differential Calculus
  • Multivariable Calculus
• Statistics Probability

Or a variation of these. As I go through them I'm free to change direction and do something else or add additional courses (I still hold an interest of Six Sigma from my manufacturing days in Motorola). The catch, or the unique selling point, is that I'm also going to implement as much as I can in Python, where appropriate, so that I can prove to myself that I actually understand the concept and can implement them in code.

Before I start I need to say that I'm doing this for me and myself alone. It is not something that I'm touting as a way for anyone else to learn about these concepts from. One reason that may not work, obviously, is that you'll need to watch along with the videos in Khan Academy. If you want to do this I'll be adding links to all videos covered on each page.

An understanding of Python is assumed. There are no Python setup instructions given.

As a side benefit I also want to brush up on my Markdown for Maths so you'll hopefully see some nicely formatted Maths equations.

Addendum:

I think I may dip in and out of the Precalculus on Khan Academy to supplement my learning (read that as fill the gaps in what I thought I knew).

• Precalculus

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Linear Algebra

Here, in order, are the list of blog posts I've made while learning Linear Algebra.

1. Vectors
2. Linear Combinations and Spans