10.4.1 Perceptrons, Layers

Let's break down our "fake brain":

Perceptron (The Basic Neuron): Think of a perceptron as a single, tiny decision-maker. It takes in some information (like numbers), does a little math with it, and then spits out a "yes" or "no" answer, or a number. It's like a tiny switch that turns on or off based on what it "sees." Imagine you're deciding if you should bring an umbrella to school. Your perceptron might take in information like:
- Is it cloudy? (Yes/No)
- Is the weather app predicting rain? (Yes/No)
- Is your friend bringing an umbrella? (Yes/No) Based on how important each piece of information is, it makes a decision.
Layers: Just one perceptron isn't very smart. But when you put many perceptrons together in rows, you get layers!
- Input Layer: This is the first layer. It takes in all the raw information, like the pixels of an image or the words in a sentence.
- Hidden Layers: These are the layers in between. They do all the hard work of processing the information, finding patterns, and making sense of it. A "deep" network has many hidden layers.
- Output Layer: This is the last layer. It gives you the final answer or decision, like "This is a cat" or "The temperature will be 75 degrees." Information flows from the input layer, through the hidden layers, and finally to the output layer, with each perceptron in each layer doing its little bit of calculation.

Bibliography

Perceptrons Explained Simply
- Kids Encyclopedia Facts
  - A basic explanation of the building blocks of neural networks.

Neural Network Layers Explained
- An Ultimate Tutorial to Neural Networks (Simplilearn)