12/2/2017 How much mathematics does an IT engineer need to learn to get into data science/machine learning?

Tirthajyoti Sarkar Follow

Semiconductor technologist, machine learning/data science zealot, Ph.D. in EE, blogger and
writer.
Aug 29 9 min read

How much mathematics does an IT

engineer need to learn to get into data
science/machine learning?

Disclaimer and Prologue

First, the disclaimer, I am not an IT engineer:-) I work in the eld of
semiconductors, speci cally high-power semiconductors, as a
technology development engineer, whose day job consists of dealing
primarily with semiconductor physics, nite-element simulation of
silicon fabrication process, or electronic circuit theory. There are, of
course, some mathematics in this endeavor, but for better of worse, I
dont need to dabble in the kind of mathematics that will be necessary
for a data scientist.

However, I have many friends in IT industry and observed a great many

traditional IT engineers enthusiastic about learning/contributing to the
exciting eld of data science and machine learning/arti cial
intelligence. I am dabbling myself in this eld to learn some tricks of
the trade which I can apply to the domain of semiconductor device or
process design. But when I started diving deep into these exciting

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subjects (by self-study), I discovered quickly that I dont know/only

have a rudimentary idea about/ forgot mostly what I studied in my
undergraduate study some essential mathematics. In this LinkedIn
article, I ramble about it

Now, I have a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from a reputed US

University and still I felt incomplete in my preparation for having solid
grasp over machine learning or data science techniques without having
a refresher in some essential mathematics. Meaning no disrespect to an
IT engineer, I must say that the very nature of his/her job and long
training generally leave him/her distanced from the world of applied
mathematics. (S)he may be dealing with lot of data and information on
a daily basis but there may not be an emphasis on rigorous modeling of
that data. Often, there is immense time pressure, and the emphasis is
on use the data for your immediate need and move on rather than on
deep probing and scienti c exploration of the same. Unfortunately,
data science should always be about the science (not data), and
following that thread, certain tools and techniques become
indispensable.

These tools and techniques modeling a process (physical or

informational) by probing the underlying dynamics, rigorously estimating
the quality of the data source, training ones sense for identi cation of the
hidden pattern from the stream of information, or understanding clearly
the limitation of a model are the hallmarks of sound scienti c process.

They are often taught at advanced graduate level courses in an applied

science/engineering discipline. Or, one can imbibe them through high-
quality graduate-level research work in similar eld. Unfortunately,
even a decade long career in traditional IT (devOps, database, or
QA/testing) will fall short of rigorously imparting this kind of training.
There is, simply, no need.

. . .

The Times They Are a-Changin

Until now.

You see, in most cases, having impeccable knowledge of SQL queries, a

clear sense of the overarching business need, and idea about the
general structure of the corresponding RDBMS is good enough to
perform the extract-transform-load cycle and thereby generating value
to the company for any IT engineer worth his/her salt. But what

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happens if someone drops by and starts asking weird question like is

your arti cially synthesized test data set random enough or how would
you know if the next data point is within 3-sigma limit of the underlying
distribution of your data? Or, even the occasional quipping from the
next-cubicle computer science graduate/nerd that the computational
load for any meaningful mathematical operation with a table of data (aka
a matrix) grows non-linearly with the size of table i.e. number of rows
and columns, can be exasperating and confusing.

And these type of questions are growing in frequency and urgency, simply
because data is the new currency.

Executives, technical managers, decision-makers are not satis ed

anymore with just the dry description of a table, obtained by traditional
ETL tools. They want to see the hidden pattern, they yarn to feel the
subtle interaction between the columns, they would like to get the full
descriptive and inferential statistics that may help in predictive
modeling and extending the projection power of the data set far
beyond the immediate range of values that it contains.

Todays data must tell a story, or, sing a song if you like. However, to listen
to its beautiful tune, one must be versed in the fundamental notes of the
music, and those are mathematical truths.

. . .

Without much further ado, let us come to the crux of the matter. What
are the essential topics/sub-topics of mathematics, that an average IT
engineer must study/refresh if (s)he wants to enter into the eld of
business analytics/data science/data mining? Ill show my idea in the
following chart.

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Basic Algebra, Functions, Set theory, Plotting,

Geometry

Always a good idea to start at the root. Edi ce of modern mathematics

is built upon some key foundations set theory, functional analysis,
number theory etc. From an applied mathematics learning point of
view, we can simplify studying these topics through some concise
modules (in no particular order):

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a) set theory basics, b) real and complex numbers and basic properties,
c) polynomial functions, exponential, logarithms, trigonometric
identities, d) linear and quadratic equations, e) inequalities, in nite
series, binomial theorem, f) permutation and combination, g) graphing
and plotting, Cartesian and polar co-ordinate systems, conic sections,
h) basic geometry and theorems, triangle properties.

Calculus
Sir Issac Newton wanted to explain the behavior of heavenly bodies.
But he did not have a good enough mathematical tool to describe his
physical concepts. So he invented this (or a certain modern form)
branch of mathematics when he was hiding away on his countryside
farm from the plague outbreak in urban England. Since then, it is
considered the gateway to advanced learning in any analytical study
pure or applied science, engineering, social science, economics,

Not surprisingly then, the concept and application of calculus pops up

in numerous places in the eld of data science or machine learning.
Most essential topics to be covered are as follows -

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a) Functions of single variable, limit, continuity and di erentiability, b)

mean value theorems, indeterminate forms and LHospital rule, c)
maxima and minima, d) product and chain rule, e) Taylors series, f)
fundamental and mean value-theorems of integral calculus, g)
evaluation of de nite and improper integrals, h) Beta and Gamma
functions, i) Functions of two variables, limit, continuity, partial
derivatives, j) basics of ordinary and partial di erential equations.

Linear Algebra
Got a new friend suggestion on Facebook? A long lost professional
contact suddenly added you on LinkedIn? Amazon suddenly
recommended an awesome romance-thriller for your next vacation
reading? Or Net ix dug up for you that little-known gem of a
documentary which just suits your taste and mood?

Doesnt it feel good to know that if you learn basics of linear algebra,
then you are empowered with the knowledge about the basic
mathematical object that is at the heart of all these exploits by the high
and mighty of the tech industry?

At least, you will know the basic properties of the mathematical

structure that controls what you shop on Target, how you drive using
Google Map, which song you listen to on Pandora, or whose room you
rent on Airbnb.

The essential topics to study are (not an ordered or exhaustive list by

any means):

a) basic properties of matrix and vectors scalar multiplication, linear

transformation, transpose, conjugate, rank, determinant, b) inner and
outer products, c) matrix multiplication rule and various algorithms, d)
matrix inverse, e) special matrices square matrix, identity matrix,
triangular matrix, idea about sparse and dense matrix, unit vectors,
symmetric matrix, Hermitian, skew-Hermitian and unitary matrices, f)
matrix factorization concept/LU decomposition, Gaussian/Gauss-
Jordan elimination, solving Ax=b linear system of equation, g) vector
space, basis, span, orthogonality, orthonormality, linear least square, h)

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singular value decomposition, i) eigenvalues, eigenvectors, and

diagonalization.

Here is a nice Medium article on what you can accomplish with linear
algebra.

Statistics and Probability

Only death and taxes are certain, and for everything else there is normal
distribution.

The importance of having a solid grasp over essential concepts of

statistics and probability cannot be overstated in a discussion about
data science. Many practitioners in the eld actually call machine
learning nothing but statistical learning. I followed the widely known
An Introduction to Statistical Learning while working on my rst
MOOC in machine learning and immediately realized the conceptual
gaps I had in the subject. To plug those gaps, I started taking other
MOOCs focused on basic statistics and probability and reading
up/watching videos on related topics. The subject is vast and endless,
and therefore focused planning is critical to cover most essential
concepts. I am trying to list them as best as I can but I fear this is the
area where I will fall short by most amount.

a) data summaries and descriptive statistics, central tendency,

variance, covariance, correlation, b) Probability: basic idea,
expectation, probability calculus, Bayes theorem, conditional
probability, c) probability distribution functions uniform, normal,
binomial, chi-square, students t-distribution, central limit theorem, d)

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sampling, measurement, error, random numbers, e) hypothesis testing,

A/B testing, con dence intervals, p-values, f) ANOVA, g) linear
regression, h) power, e ect size, testing means, i) research studies and
design-of-experiment.

Here is a nice article on the necessity of statistics knowledge for a data

scientist.

Special Topics: Optimization theory, Algorithm

analysis
These topics are little di erent from the traditional discourse in applied
mathematics as they are mostly relevant and most widely used in
specialized elds of study theoretical computer science, control
theory, or operation research. However, a basic understanding of these
powerful techniques can be so fruitful in the practice of machine
learning that they are worth mentioning here.

For example, virtually every machine learning algorithm/technique

aims to minimize some kind of estimation error subject to various
constraints. That, right there, is an optimization problem, which is
generally solved by linear programming or similar techniques. On the
other hand, it is always deeply satisfying and insightful experience to
understand a computer algorithms time complexity as it becomes
extremely important when the algorithm is applied to a large data set.
In this era of big data, where a data scientist is routinely expected to
extract, transform, and analyze billions of records, (s)he must be
extremely careful about choosing the right algorithm as it can make all
the di erence between amazing performance or abject failure. General
theory and properties of algorithms are best studied in a formal
computer science course but to understand how their time complexity
(i.e. how much time the algorithm will take to run for a given size of

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data) is analyzed and calculated, one must have rudimentary

familiarity with mathematical concepts such as dynamic programming
or recurrence equations. A familiarity with the technique of proof by
mathematical induction can be extremely helpful too.

Epilogue
Scared? Mind-bending list of topics to learn just as per-requisite? Fear
not, you will learn on the go and as needed. But the goal is to keep the
windows and doors of your mind open and welcoming.

There is even a concise MOOC course to get you started. Note, this is a
beginner-level course for refreshing your high-school or freshman year
level knowledge. And here is a summary article on 15 best math
courses for data science on kdnuggets.

But you can be assured that, after refreshing these topics, many of
which you may have studied in your undergraduate, or even learning
new concepts, you will feel so empowered that you will de nitely start
to hear the hidden music that the data sings. And thats called a big
leap towards becoming a data scientist

. . .

#datascience, #machinelearning, #information, #technology,

#mathematics

If you have any questions or ideas to share, please contact the author at
tirthajyoti[AT]gmail.com. Also you can check authors GitHub
repositories for other fun code snippets in Python, R, or MATLAB and
machine learning resources. You can also follow me on LinkedIn.

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