[JunaidB]

Thank you for taking the time to look through the post. When I learned this formally it was introduced as steepest descent (Cauchy's variant). Like yourself, it didn't become concrete to me until I looked at the surface plots. I concur with your point that it's interesting to see the different paths people take toward learning the same thing.

[ci5er]

I too, like commenter above, find it fascinating how various concepts are quickly accessible (or not!) for different people. Usually I blame it on the teacher's presentation (for my part, I am completely unable to explain pointers in (say, C) to people who haven't already been able to get it), but sometimes it is also the building blocks that the learner already has in place.

So - maybe a rude question - but had you take Calculus, Differential Equations or Vector Calculus (div, grad and curl and all that) before you started in on this more integrated material?

[JunaidB]

Not rude at all! Thanks for the question. My background is in Statistics not Machine learning (that came later) so I covered these topics without reference to ML applications. I suppose I never learned to connect these ideas when I was learning about ML, it was only when I went back to my old material I realised how these ideas relate. I agree with your point about teacher material, when I was learning about ML it was separated from raw Calculus.

A short answer to your question - yes I took those courses before I started looking at the more integrated material.