Calculus Essentials for Machine Learning
Chapter 1: Introduction: Why Calculus Matters in Machine Learning
Functions and Models in ML
The Concept of Optimization in ML
Measuring Change: The Role of Derivatives
Calculus as a Tool for Understanding Algorithms
Chapter 2: Single-Variable Calculus: Derivatives and Optimization
Understanding Limits: The Foundation
Common Differentiation Rules
Finding Minima and Maxima using Derivatives
Application: Simple Cost Function Optimization
Hands-on Practical: Calculating Derivatives with Python
Chapter 3: Multivariable Calculus: Gradients and Direction
Functions of Multiple Variables
Multivariable Optimization Concepts
Hands-on Practical: Computing Gradients with NumPy
Chapter 4: Gradient Descent Algorithms
The Intuition Behind Gradient Descent
The Gradient Descent Algorithm Steps
The Learning Rate Parameter
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD)
Mini-batch Gradient Descent
Challenges: Local Minima and Saddle Points
Hands-on Practical: Implementing Simple Gradient Descent
Chapter 5: The Chain Rule and Backpropagation
Revisiting the Chain Rule for Single Variables
The Chain Rule for Multivariable Functions
Introduction to Neural Networks as Composite Functions
Backpropagation: Applying the Chain Rule
Calculating Gradients for Weights and Biases
Hands-on Practical: Manual Backpropagation Example