[3] SciPy contains modules for optimization, linear algebra, integration, interpolation, special functions, FFT, signal and image processing, ODE solvers and other tasks common in science and engineering.

Available sub-packages include: The basic data structure used by SciPy is a multidimensional array provided by the NumPy module.

As of 2000, there was a growing number of extension modules and increasing interest in creating a complete environment for scientific and technical computing.

In 2001, Travis Oliphant, Eric Jones, and Pearu Peterson merged code they had written and called the resulting package SciPy.

[citation needed] Furthermore, expanding "SciPy" as "Scientific Python" may cause confusion with "ScientificPython", a project led by Konrad Hinsen of Orléans University that was active between 1995[10] and 2014.