Python: Deeper Insights into Machine Learning

Classifying handwritten digits

In the previous section, we covered a lot of the theory around neural networks, which can be a little bit overwhelming if you are new to this topic. Before we continue with the discussion of the algorithm for learning the weights of the MLP model, backpropagation, let's take a short break from the theory and see a neural network in action.

Note

Neural network theory can be quite complex, thus I want to recommend two additional resources that cover some of the concepts that we discuss in this chapter in more detail:

T. Hastie, J. Friedman, and R. Tibshirani. The Elements of Statistical Learning, Volume 2. Springer, 2009.

C. M. Bishop et al. Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning, Volume 1. Springer New York, 2006.