We hear about machine learning a lot these days, and in fact it's all around us. It can sound kind of mysterious, or even scary, but it turns out that machine learning is just math. And to prove that it's just math, I will write this article the old-school way, with hand-written equations instead of code. If you prefer to learn by listening and watching, I posted a video that covers the content of this article here. To explain what machine learning is and how math makes it work, we will do a full walk-through of logistic regression, a fairly simple but fundamental model that is in some sense the building block of more complex models like neural networks.

Self-driving cars, face detection software, and voice controlled speakers all are built on machine learning technologies and frameworks--and these are just the first wave. Over the next decade, a new generation of products will transform our world, initiating new approaches to software development and the applications and products that we create and use. As a Java developer, you want to get ahead of this curve now--when tech companies are beginning to seriously invest in machine learning. What you learn today, you can build on over the next five years, but you have to start somewhere. This article will get you started.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how and why I was learning Machine Learning, mainly through Andrew Ng's Coursera course. Machine Learning is built on prerequisites, so much so that learning by first principles seems overwhelming. Do you really need to spend a month learning linear algebra? You'll be okay if you have some math and programming experience. You really just have to be familiar with Sigma notation and be able to express it in a for loop. Sure, your assignments will take longer to complete and the first few times you see those giant equations your head will spin, but you can do this! Calculus is not even required.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how and why I was learning Machine Learning, mainly through Andrew Ng's Coursera course. Machine Learning is built on prerequisites, so much so that learning by first principles seems overwhelming. Do you really need to spend a month learning linear algebra? You'll be okay if you have some math and programming experience. You really just have to be familiar with Sigma notation and be able to express it in a for loop. Sure, your assignments will take longer to complete and the first few times you see those giant equations your head will spin, but you can do this!