PCA: Variance, Eigenvectors, and Principal Components
Learners will fit PCA to a high-dimensional dataset, inspect explained variance ratios, and choose the number of components that retain 95% of total variance.
PCA: Variance, Eigenvectors, and Principal Components is a free Machine Learning Academy lesson on CoddyKit — lesson 1 of 4. You can read the complete lesson below for free — then practise it hands-on in the browser with a built-in code editor and a 24/7 AI tutor. It is part of the Machine Learning Academy learning path, one of 4 lessons in the course, and your progress syncs across the web and the CoddyKit app.
The Problem with High-Dimensional Data
As feature count grows, datasets become increasingly sparse — the curse of dimensionality. Many features are redundant or correlated, carrying overlapping information. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) solves this by finding a new, smaller set of axes (principal components) that capture the maximum variance in the data with the fewest dimensions.
Variance: What PCA Maximises
PCA seeks directions in feature space along which the data varies the most. A direction with high variance captures rich information; a direction with near-zero variance is essentially noise. The first principal component (PC1) is the direction of maximum variance, PC2 is orthogonal to PC1 with the next highest variance, and so on.
Covariance Matrix and Eigenvectors
PCA operates on the covariance matrix of the centred data. The eigenvectors of this matrix point in the directions of maximum variance, and the corresponding eigenvalues measure how much variance each direction captures. The eigenvectors are the principal components; sorting them by eigenvalue in descending order gives PC1, PC2, ... PCn.
import numpy as np
X = np.array([[2.5, 2.4], [0.5, 0.7], [2.2, 2.9],
[1.9, 2.2], [3.1, 3.0], [2.3, 2.7]])
# Centre the data
X_centered = X - X.mean(axis=0)
# Compute covariance matrix
cov = np.cov(X_centered.T)
print('Covariance matrix:\n', cov)
# Eigenvectors and eigenvalues
eigenvalues, eigenvectors = np.linalg.eigh(cov)
idx = np.argsort(eigenvalues)[::-1]
print('Eigenvalues:', eigenvalues[idx])
print('PC1 direction:', eigenvectors[:, idx[0]])Explained Variance Ratio
The explained variance ratio of each component is its eigenvalue divided by the sum of all eigenvalues. If PC1 explains 90% of variance and PC2 explains 8%, the first two components together retain 98% of all information. This ratio guides how many components to keep — a common threshold is 95%.
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.datasets import load_digits
X, _ = load_digits(return_X_y=True) # 64 features
pca = PCA()
pca.fit(X)
cumulative_variance = pca.explained_variance_ratio_.cumsum()
n_95 = (cumulative_variance < 0.95).sum() + 1
print(f'Components to retain 95% variance: {n_95}')
print(f'Explained by first 10 components: {cumulative_variance[9]:.3f}')Choosing n_components
Set n_components as an integer (e.g., PCA(n_components=10)) to keep exactly 10 components, or as a float between 0 and 1 (e.g., PCA(n_components=0.95)) to automatically keep enough components to explain that fraction of variance. The latter is the cleanest approach for pipelines where you want variance-based truncation without knowing the count upfront.
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.datasets import load_digits
X, _ = load_digits(return_X_y=True)
# Retain 95% of variance automatically
pca = PCA(n_components=0.95)
pca.fit(X)
print('Number of components chosen:', pca.n_components_)
print('Total variance retained:', pca.explained_variance_ratio_.sum().round(4))The Scree Plot
A scree plot shows explained variance ratio (or eigenvalue) on the y-axis and component index on the x-axis. The plot typically shows a steep drop then a flat plateau. The elbow — where the drop becomes gradual — is another heuristic for the number of components to retain, similar to the elbow method in K-Means.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.datasets import load_wine
X, _ = load_wine(return_X_y=True)
pca = PCA()
pca.fit(X)
plt.figure(figsize=(8, 4))
plt.subplot(1, 2, 1)
plt.bar(range(1, 14), pca.explained_variance_ratio_)
plt.xlabel('Component')
plt.ylabel('Explained variance ratio')
plt.title('Scree Plot')
plt.subplot(1, 2, 2)
plt.plot(pca.explained_variance_ratio_.cumsum(), marker='o')
plt.axhline(0.95, color='red', linestyle='--')
plt.xlabel('Number of components')
plt.ylabel('Cumulative variance')
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()Centering and Scaling Before PCA
PCA is sensitive to feature scale. A feature measured in thousands will dominate the covariance matrix. Always standardise with StandardScaler before PCA to give each feature unit variance. Centring (zero mean) is essential — PCA implicitly does this, but if you use a Pipeline, the scaler should come first so PCA operates on already-centred, equal-scale features.
from sklearn.pipeline import Pipeline
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.datasets import load_wine
X, _ = load_wine(return_X_y=True)
pipe = Pipeline([
('scaler', StandardScaler()),
('pca', PCA(n_components=0.95))
])
pipe.fit(X)
print('Original shape:', X.shape)
print('Reduced shape:', pipe.transform(X).shape)What Do Principal Components Represent?
Each principal component is a linear combination of the original features — a weighted sum. Inspecting the component loadings (the coefficients) reveals which original features contribute most to each PC. However, components are often not directly interpretable because they mix features together. PCA is primarily a compression tool, not a feature selection tool.
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler
from sklearn.datasets import load_wine
import pandas as pd
X, _ = load_wine(return_X_y=True)
X_scaled = StandardScaler().fit_transform(X)
pca = PCA(n_components=2)
pca.fit(X_scaled)
feature_names = load_wine().feature_names
loadings = pd.DataFrame(pca.components_.T, index=feature_names,
columns=['PC1', 'PC2'])
print(loadings.round(2))SVD: The Efficient Implementation
In practice, scikit-learn computes PCA via Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) rather than explicit eigendecomposition of the covariance matrix, because SVD is numerically more stable and works directly on the data matrix without forming the covariance matrix. The result is mathematically identical. For very large datasets, PCA(svd_solver='randomized') uses an approximate randomised SVD for speed.
PCA Is Linear and Orthogonal
Important limitations: PCA finds only linear relationships between features. If the meaningful structure in your data lies on a curved manifold (e.g., a Swiss roll), PCA will not discover it effectively — kernel PCA or t-SNE are better alternatives. Also, PCA components are orthogonal by construction, which can be a mismatch if your underlying factors are correlated.
PCA on a Real Dataset: Quick End-to-End
Here is the full workflow: scale, PCA to 2D, and scatter-plot with class colour to check if the reduced space still separates classes visually. This is a standard exploratory step before training a classifier on the full feature set.
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler
from sklearn.datasets import load_iris
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
X, y = load_iris(return_X_y=True)
X_scaled = StandardScaler().fit_transform(X)
pca = PCA(n_components=2)
X_2d = pca.fit_transform(X_scaled)
plt.scatter(X_2d[:, 0], X_2d[:, 1], c=y, cmap='Set1', s=30)
plt.xlabel(f'PC1 ({pca.explained_variance_ratio_[0]:.1%} var)')
plt.ylabel(f'PC2 ({pca.explained_variance_ratio_[1]:.1%} var)')
plt.title('Iris in PCA space')
plt.colorbar(label='Class')
plt.show()Quick Check
Test your understanding of PCA from this lesson.
Lesson Recap
In this lesson you learned: PCA finds directions of maximum variance via the covariance matrix eigenvectors, explained variance ratio guides how many components to keep (typically aim for 95%), and always standardise features before PCA so scale differences do not bias the components. Next up we project data into principal-component space and reconstruct it to quantify information loss.
Frequently asked questions
Is the “PCA: Variance, Eigenvectors, and Principal Components” lesson free?
Yes — the full text of “PCA: Variance, Eigenvectors, and Principal Components” is free to read here on the web, and the Machine Learning Academy course includes 4 lessons in total. To practise it interactively (a built-in code editor and a 24/7 AI tutor) and unlock the rest of the Machine Learning Academy course, upgrade to CoddyKit PRO.
What will I learn in “PCA: Variance, Eigenvectors, and Principal Components”?
Learners will fit PCA to a high-dimensional dataset, inspect explained variance ratios, and choose the number of components that retain 95% of total variance. You practise Machine Learning Academy with hands-on code you run directly in the browser, and a 24/7 AI tutor answers your questions as you work through the lesson.
Do I need any experience to start Machine Learning Academy?
No prior experience is required. Machine Learning Academy on CoddyKit is structured for beginners through advanced learners; this is — lesson 1 of 4, so you can start here or from the beginning and move at your own pace.
How long does the “PCA: Variance, Eigenvectors, and Principal Components” lesson take?
Most CoddyKit lessons take about 5–10 minutes. Each one is bite-sized and interactive, so you make steady progress and pick up exactly where you left off across the web and the app.
Can I write and run code in this Machine Learning Academy lesson?
Yes. Every Machine Learning Academy lesson includes a built-in code editor, so you write and run real code right in your browser and get instant AI feedback — no local setup required.
All lessons in this course
- PCA: Variance, Eigenvectors, and Principal Components
- Projecting Data and Reconstructing from Components
- t-SNE: Neighbourhood Preservation for Visualisation
- PCA as Preprocessing: Speed and Noise Reduction in Pipelines