> Now everybody could just use plain English - if you have a negative number, set it to zero, in all other cases, keep the number - I don't know why someone has

> Now everybody could just use plain English - if you have a negative number, set it to zero, in all other cases, keep the number - I don't know why someone has to use 'rectified linear unit' to describe this simple operation. I agree this is often a problem, but "rectified linear unit" isn't a deep learning term that was made up, as you obviously know from your physics background - its origins are in AC/DC power conversion. Anyone who knows basic signal processing knows what a rectifier is, and something that employs that function is a unit of it. There's plenty of nonsensical complexity in machine learning, but rectifiers and sigmoids and other 10-cent words describing maths aren't overly complicated, in my opinion. Lastly, saying "if you have a negative number, set it to zero, in all other cases, keep the number" is a lot more complicated and tedious than just saying "apply a rectifier." Would "ramp function" be acceptably plain?