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Not sure how you're going to have someone understand gradient descent and backprop without having a strong command of multivariable calculus.
by smallnamespace 8y ago
Not sure how you're going to have someone understand gradient descent and backprop without having a strong command of multivariable calculus.
- Retric 8y agoGoing from 1 variable to 2 or 20 never seemed like a big jump to me. I can see taking 1-2 weeks to go over it quickly, but you don't need a lot of problem set's to get it. It's like learning a new computer language, it takes about as long to do that on it's own as to have a class in something else that happens to use your that new language.
- beojan 8y agoLine / surface / volume integrals are certainly a jump from one-variable integrals.
- fooker 8y agoNot a big jump, if you conceptually stick to the 'area under curve' definition. Analytically computing surface/volume integrals, yes, that is a big jump. But I don't understand why students need to memorize N algorithms and M substitution rules for that.
- woopwoop 8y agoWhat is the straightforward "area under the curve" definition of a line integral?
- fooker 8y agoWikipedia has a nice animation for this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_integral#/media/File:Line_integral_of_scalar_field.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_integral#/media/File:Line...
- woopwoop 8y agoOkay. I am used to this being called a path integral, and the phrase line integral being reserved for the integral of a vector field over a curve. This does not, as far as I know, admit a straightforward definition as an area under a curve.
- fooker 8y agoIf you replace area under curve with volume under surface, it seems to me that the same intuition holds.
- gowld 8y agoSure, and AI isn't a big jump from statistics.
- fooker 8y agoI would say AI:Statistics :: Engineering:Physics . Sometimes it is a big jump, sometimes it is all common sense.
- fooker 8y agoI don't get this focus on 'maths via arcane problem solving' either.
- lallysingh 8y agoI'd assume you take multivariate, but skip on programming languages, digital design, and operating systems.
- asdsa5325 8y agoThey taught gradient descent in my lower division math courses in college.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoMultivariable calculus is a lower-division math class.
- scott_russell 8y agoyep, softmore level math.