Using Python For Symbolic Calculations

Damian Ejlli
Physics and Machine Learning
6 min readJul 14, 2023

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Symbolic calculations play a crucial role in various fields of science and mathematics, allowing us to manipulate mathematical expressions and equations without assigning specific numerical values. Python, a versatile programming language known for its simplicity and extensive libraries, provides powerful tools for performing symbolic calculations. In this article, I will explore how Python can be utilized to tackle complex symbolic computations efficiently. Additionally, I will highlight the key differences between Python’s symbolic computation capabilities and those of other popular software tools such as Mathematica and MATLAB.

Setting up the Environment

Before diving into symbolic calculations, it is necessary to ensure that our Python environment is properly set up. First, make sure you have Python installed on your system. You can visit the official Python website (python.org) to download and install the latest version. Additionally, I will be using the SymPy library, a popular Python package for symbolic mathematics. You can install SymPy using for example pip, a package manager for Python, by running the following command in your terminal or command prompt

pip install sympy    

Symbolic Variables and Expressions

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Damian Ejlli
Physics and Machine Learning

Theoretical Physicist (Ph.D), Machine Learning Researcher and Author