The Math Module

4.2. The Math Module#

4.2.1. Importing Functions#

The math module gives us access to many useful mathematical functions. But to use the functions we need to import the math module, which we will usually do at the top of our Python script. There are two ways we recommend doing this

Option 1: Import the entire module. We do this if we want to access all of the available functions.

import math

When you run this, it doesn’t seem to do anything. But you’ll see that this gives us access to all of the functions inside the math module. In order to use these functions, you need to indicate that they’re coming from the math module using:

math.function()

For example,

import math

print(math.cos(0))

Option 2: Import specific functions from the module.

from math import cos

Again, this doesn’t seem to do anything, but you’ll see that it does give us access to the cos function. This time, when we use the cos function we don’t need to explicitly say it’s coming from the math library we can just use the function:

function()

For example,

from math import cos

print(cos(0))

If you want to import multiple functions you can so so by separating each function with a comma.

For example,

from math import cos, sin

print(cos(0))
print(sin(0))

If you try to import a function that does not exist inside the math module, you will get an ImportErrror.

4.2.2. Accessing Constants#

In addition to functions, modules may also provide useful constants. For example the math module provides \(\pi\), \(e\), \(\tau = 2\pi\), \(\infty\) and nan (not a number). To use these you also have to import the math module, but since they are not functions, you don’t need the brackets.

Import option 1

import math

print(math.pi)

Import option 2

from math import pi

print(pi)

The Math Module

Contents

4.2. The Math Module#

4.2.1. Importing Functions#

4.2.2. Accessing Constants#