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Is there a way to write a python function that will create 'N' arrays? (see body)

I have an numpy array that is shape 20, 3. (So 20 3 by 1 arrays. Correct me if I'm wrong, I am still pretty new to python)
I need to separate it into 3 arrays of shape 20,1 where the first array is 20 elements that are the 0th element of each 3 by 1 array. Second array is also 20 elements that are the 1st element of each 3 by 1 array, etc.
I am not sure if I need to write a function for this. Here is what I have tried:
Essentially I'm trying to create an array of 3 20 by 1 arrays that I can later index to get the separate 20 by 1 arrays.
a = np.load() #loads file
num=20 #the num is if I need to change array size
num_2=3
for j in range(0,num):
for l in range(0,num_2):
array_elements = np.zeros(3)
array_elements[l] = a[j:][l]
This gives the following error:
'''
ValueError: setting an array element with a sequence
'''
I have also tried making it a dictionary and making the dictionary values lists that are appended, but it only gives the first or last value of the 20 that I need.

Your array has shape (20, 3), this means it's a 2-dimensional array with 20 rows and 3 columns in each row.
You can access data in this array by indexing using numbers or ':' to indicate ranges. You want to split this in to 3 arrays of shape (20, 1), so one array per column. To do this you can pick the column with numbers and use ':' to mean 'all of the rows'. So, to access the three different columns: a[:, 0], a[:, 1] and a[:, 2].
You can then assign these to separate variables if you wish e.g. arr = a[:, 0] but this is just a reference to the original data in array a. This means any changes in arr will also be made to the corresponding data in a.
If you want to create a new array so this doesn't happen, you can easily use the .copy() function. Now if you set arr = a[:, 0].copy(), arr is completely separate to a and changes made to one will not affect the other.

Essentially you want to group your arrays by their index. There are plenty of ways of doing this. Since numpy does not have a group by method, you have to horizontally split the arrays into a new array and reshape it.
old_length = 3
new_length = 20
a = np.array(np.hsplit(a, old_length)).reshape(old_length, new_length)
Edit: It appears you can achieve the same effect by rotating the array -90 degrees. You can do this by using rot90 and setting k=-1 or k=3 telling numpy to rotate by 90 k times.
a = np.rot90(a, k=-1)

Numpy array dimensions are unexpectedly reordered after indexing [duplicate]

I have the following minimal example:
a = np.zeros((5,5,5))
a[1,1,:] = [1,1,1,1,1]
print(a[1,:,range(4)])
I would expect as output an array with 5 rows and 4 columns, where we have ones on the second row. Instead it is an array with 4 rows and 5 columns with ones on the second column. What is happening here, and what can I do to get the output I expected?

This is an example of mixed basic and advanced indexing, as discussed in https://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/arrays.indexing.html#combining-advanced-and-basic-indexing
The slice dimension has been appended to the end.
With one scalar index this is a marginal case for the ambiguity described there. It's been discussed in previous SO questions and one or more bug/issues.
Numpy sub-array assignment with advanced, mixed indexing
In this case you can replace the range with a slice, and get the expected order:
In [215]: a[1,:,range(4)].shape
Out[215]: (4, 5) # slice dimension last
In [216]: a[1,:,:4].shape
Out[216]: (5, 4)
In [219]: a[1][:,[0,1,3]].shape
Out[219]: (5, 3)

Call numpy ravel and include an interger multi-index

I have 4-dimensional array. I am going to turn it into a 1-dim array. I use numpy ravel and it works fin with the default parameters.
However I would also like the positions/indices in the 4-dim array.
I want something like this as row in my output.
x,y,z,w,value
With x being the first dimension of my initial array and so on.
The obvious approach is iteration, however I was told to avoid it when I can.
for i in range(test.shape[0]):
for j in range(test.shape[1]):
for k in range(test.shape[2]):
for l in range(test.shape[3]):
print(i,j,k,l,test[(i,j,k,l)])
It will be to slow when I use a larger dataset.
Is there a way to configure ravel to do this or any other approach faster than iteration.

Use np.indices with sparse=False, combined with np.concatenate to build the array. np.indices provides the first n columns, and np.concatenate appends the last one:
test = np.random.randint(10, size=(3, 5, 4, 2))
index = np.indices(test.shape, sparse=False) # shape: (4, 3, 5, 4, 2)
data = np.concatenate((index, test[None, ...]), axis=0).reshape(test.ndim + 1, -1).T
A more detailed breakdown:
index is a (4, *test.shape) array, with one element per dimension.
To make test concatenatable with index, you need to prepend a unit dimension, which is what test[None, ...] does. None is synonymous with np.newaxis, and Ellipsis, or ..., means "all the remaining dimensions".
When you concatenate along axis=0, you are appending test to the array of indices. Each element of index along the first axis is now a 5-element array containing the index followed by the value. The remaining axes reflect the shape of test, but besides that, you have what you want.
The goal is to flatten out the trailing dimensions, so you get a (5, N) array, where N = np.prod(test.shape). Thats what the final reshape does. test.ndim + 1 is the size of the index +1 for the value. -1 can appear exactly once in a reshape. It means "product of all the remaining dimensions".

Sorting arrays by their last argument

I want to sort a numpy array of arrays based on their last entry.
For example, say we have this array of arrays:
a=np.array([np.array([1,2,5]),np.array([1,3,0]),np.array([1,4,-17])])
I want to return the array sorted this way:
np.array([np.array([1,4,-17]),np.array([1,3,0]) ,np.array([1,2,5]) ])
I.e. as -17 <= 0 <= 5, last array becomes the first one, and so on. Elements within each array must not be altered.
I suppose numpy has a builtin but I haven't been able to find it.

Numpy minimum with functional arg

Is there a way of computing a minimum index value of an array after application of a function (i.e. the equivalent of matlab find)?
In other words consider something like:
a = [1,-3,-10,3]
np.find_max(a,lambda x:abs(x))
Should return 2.
I could write a loop for this obviously but I assume it would be faster to use an inbuilt numpy function if one existed.

Use argmax, according to the documentation:
numpy.argmax(a, axis=None, out=None)
Returns the indices of
the maximum values along an axis.
Parameters: a : array_like Input array. axis : int, optional By
default, the index is into the flattened array, otherwise along the
specified axis. out : array, optional If provided, the result will be
inserted into this array. It should be of the appropriate shape and
dtype. Returns: index_array : ndarray of ints Array of indices into
the array. It has the same shape as a.shape with the dimension along
axis removed. See also ndarray.argmax, argmin
amax The maximum value along a given axis. unravel_index Convert a
flat index into an index tuple. Notes
In case of multiple occurrences of the maximum values, the indices
corresponding to the first occurrence are returned.
import numpy as np
a = [1, -3, -10, 3]
print(np.argmax(np.abs(a)))
Output:
2