What is a Python module?

A module is a package or group of programs that is written by an expert, user, or even a beginner who is usually very good in a specific area, to serve a specific purpose.

For example, a Python module called quant is for quantitative financial analysis. quant combines two modules of SciPy and DomainModel. The module contains a domain model that has exchanges, symbols, markets, and historical prices, among other things. Modules are very important in Python. In this book, we will discuss about a dozen modules implicitly or explicitly. In particular, we will explain five modules in detail: NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, statsmodels, and Pandas.

Note

As of November 16, 2016, there are 92,872 Python modules (packages) with different areas available according to the Python Package Index.

For the financial and insurance industries, there are 384 modules currently available.

Assume that we want to estimate the square root of 3 by using the sqrt() function. However, after issuing...