Exploring dependent and independent variables
In this chapter, you will learn about dependent and independent variables. You will learn about the need for scaling and normalization of data, in addition to performing those operations. You will also use some basic modeling methods to analyze your data.
At a high level, we can say a dependent variable is related to one or more independent variables in a linear or non-linear way. Linear models are easy to understand. A linear model relating one Y to one X is just a line. With multiple X variables, each one has a coefficient that gives its effect on Y, and since all those effects are independent, we just add all the effects together in a multivariate linear model. In a non-linear model, Y depends on X in a more complex way, such as Y being a function of X2. We can create non-linear models nearly as easily as linear models in pandas using some simple additional modules. We'll explore how to do that in the following chapter.
Much...
