Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox

Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by ktpsns on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @11:27AM (#17450949)

Being a physicist in computational (general) relativity, when I read about a "tensor toolbox" I would think about a code implementing some kind of tensor algebra, such as a syntax to do tensor contractions.

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by IlyaKisil on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:08PM (#17451323)

Sorry for misleading. I am aware that the term "tensor" was originally introduced within physics. But then it was adopted in chemometrics, signal processing and machine learning in a context of N-dimensional arrays of data. As such, this toolbox is focused on multi-way analysis and tensor decompositions of N-dimensional data arrays (tensors). However, fundamental operations include folding/unfolding of the data, tensor-matrix product and contration with a vector or another tensor. The latter is not implemented at the moment, but will be in future releases. Not sure whether these opertations carry the same meaning as in physics though.

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by laingc on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @03:53PM (#17453159)

I don’t want to jump on top of a pedant pile, because I think it’s really cool that you’re out there making useful stuff.

The group where I did my PhD was a Numerical Relativity group and I now work in Machine Learning, so I can appreciate where you’re coming from.

However, a Tensor has a very precise mathematical meaning, and has done for centuries (dating back to at least Voigt, and arguably as far as Gauss). Even in machine learning, people recognise that they are abusing the term tensor by restricting its use to Tensors expressed in the canonical orthogonal basis of E^n.

I really think we should be discouraging this debasement of our mathematical terminology. It’s just not helpful at all.

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by IlyaKisil on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @04:59PM (#17453577)

I do agree that tensors are much more then just an array of data with N-indices and that numerical methods are oftentime forget about that.

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by philipov on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @05:34PM (#17453772)

I am looking for a python library that handles tensors, in the precise mathematical sense. Can you recommend one please?

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by yorwba on Wednesday July 04, 2018 @04:03AM (#17455878)

Maybe https://cadabra.science/ ? I haven't used it myself, but it's linked from the main page of http://www.sympy.org/ , which would also allow you to define tensor operations yourself if necessary.

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by charlescearl on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @04:50PM (#17453515)

Do you have any recommended readings for ML people from a CS background wishing to get an introduction to Tensor analysis?

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by IlyaKisil on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @05:06PM (#17453624)

I would suggest to search on YouTube for Tamara Kolda: Tensor decompositions. She also published a very good introductory paper “Tensor decompositions and applications” in 2008.

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Re:Show HN: Hottbox – Higher-Order Tensors Toolbox by charlescearl on Wednesday July 04, 2018 @07:42AM (#17456645)

That is a great talk. Thanks for the link

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