Book excerpt: Familiarize yourself with the basics of Python for engineering and scientific computations using this concise, practical tutorial that is focused on writing code to learn concepts. Introduction to Python is useful for industry engineers, researchers, and students who are looking for open-source solutions for numerical computation. In this book you will learn by doing, avoiding technical jargon, which makes the concepts easy to learn. First you’ll see how to run basic calculations, absorbing technical complexities incrementally as you progress toward advanced topics. Throughout, the language is kept simple to ensure that readers at all levels can grasp the concepts. What You'll Learn Understand the fundamentals of the Python programming language Apply Python to numerical computational programming projects in engineering and science Discover the Pythonic way of life Apply data types, operators, and arrays Carry out plotting for visualization Work with functions and loops Who This Book Is For Engineers, scientists, researchers, and students who are new to Python. Some prior programming experience would be helpful but not required.