vectorspace_dimensionality: compute the number of dimensions that a set of vectors spans

A function to compute the number of dimensions a set of vectors (arranged as columns in a matrix) spans.

from mlxtend.math import vectorspace_dimensionality

Overview

Given a set of vectors, arranged as columns in a matrix, the vectorspace_dimensionality computes the number of dimensions (i.e., hyper-volume) that the vectorspace spans using the Gram-Schmidt process [1]. In particular, since the Gram-Schmidt process yields vectors that are zero or normalized to 1 (i.e., an orthonormal vectorset if the input was a set of linearly independent vectors), the sum of the vector norms corresponds to the number of dimensions of a vectorset.

References

  • [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram–Schmidt_process

Example 1 - Compute the dimensions of a vectorspace

Let's assume we have the two basis vectors and as columns in a matrix. Due to the linear independence of the two vectors, the space that they span is naturally a plane (2D space):

import numpy as np
from mlxtend.math import vectorspace_dimensionality


a = np.array([[1, 0],
              [0, 1]])

vectorspace_dimensionality(a)

2

However, if one vector is a linear combination of the other, it's intuitive to see that the space the vectorset describes is merely a line, aka a 1D space:

b = np.array([[1, 2],
              [0, 0]])

vectorspace_dimensionality(a)

2

If 3 vectors are all linearly independent of each other, the dimensionality of the vector space is a volume (i.e., a 3D space):

d = np.array([[1, 9,  1],
              [3, 2,  2],
              [5, 4,  3]])

vectorspace_dimensionality(d)

3

Again, if a pair of vectors is linearly dependent (here: the 1st and the 2nd row), this reduces the dimensionality by 1:

c = np.array([[1, 2,  1],
              [3, 6,  2],
              [5, 10, 3]])

vectorspace_dimensionality(c)

2

API

vectorspace_dimensionality(ary)

Computes the hyper-volume spanned by a vector set

Parameters

  • ary : array-like, shape=[num_vectors, num_vectors]

    An orthogonal set of vectors (arranged as columns in a matrix)

Returns

  • dimensions : int

    An integer indicating the "dimensionality" hyper-volume spanned by the vector set

Examples

For usage examples, please see https://rasbt.github.io/mlxtend/user_guide/math/vectorspace_dimensionality/