A Step by Step Backpropagation Example - Matt Mazur

5/1/2017 A Step by Step Backpropagation Example Matt Mazur
A Step by Step
BackpropagationExample
Matt Mazur
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Backpropagation is a common method for training a neural network. There is no
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shortage of papers online that attempt to explain how backpropagation works,
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but few that include an example with actual numbers. This post is my attempt to
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explain how it works with a concrete example that folks can compare their own
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calculations to in order to ensure they understand backpropagation correctly.
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Backpropagation in Python
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You can play around with a Python script that I wrote that implements the
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backpropagation algorithm in this Github repo.
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Backpropagation Visualization
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For an interactive visualization showing a neural network as it learns, check out
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scientist Help Scout where I
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our product and business. I also Additional Resources
built Lean Domain Search,
Preceden and many other If you find this tutorial useful and want to continue learning about neural
software products over the years.
networks and their applications, I highly recommend checking out Adrian
Rosebrocks excellent tutorial on Getting Started with Deep Learning and
Python.
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Overview
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For this tutorial, were going to use a neural network with two inputs, two hidden
Tweets by @mhmazur neurons, two output neurons. Additionally, the hidden and output neurons will
include a bias.
Matt Mazur Retweeted
Luma Theodoro Heres the basic structure:

@lumatheodoro
Here you have a panel of

clocks, which together form a
clock
https://mattmazur.com/2015/03/17/a-step-by-step-backpropagation-example/ 1/10
23 Apr
Bill Gates
@BillGates
Indian Prime Minister
@narendramodi put a
spotlight on a subject that
most of us would rather not
even think about: b-
gat.es/2qbs2Kk
25 Apr
In order to have some numbers to work with, here are the initial weights, the
biases, and training inputs/outputs:
Jason Cohen
@asmartbear
Avoiding the trap of low-

knowledge, high-
confidence theories
blog.asmartbear.com/low-
fact-trap.
25 Apr
Matt Mazur
@mhmazur
A Simple CROSS
JOIN Example
mattmazur.com/2017/04/23/a- The goal of backpropagation is to optimize the weights so that the neural
s
network can learn how to correctly map arbitrary inputs to outputs.
For the rest of this tutorial were going to work with a single training set: given
inputs 0.05 and 0.10, we want the neural network to output 0.01 and 0.99.
The Forward Pass
23 Apr To begin, lets see what the neural network currently predicts given the weights
and biases above and inputs of 0.05 and 0.10. To do this well feed those inputs
forward though the network.
Adam Kucharski
@AdamJKucharski
We figure out the total net input to each hidden layer neuron, squash the total
Survivorship bias
xkcd.com/1827/ net input using an activation function (here we use the logistic function), then
repeat the process with the output layer neurons.
Total net input is also referred to as just net input by some sources.
Heres how we calculate the total net input for :
21 Apr We then squash it using the logistic function to get the output of :
Tim Urban
@waitbutwhy
Carrying out the same process for we get:
It's finally here: the full story
on Neuralink. I knew the
future would be nuts but this
is a whole other level.
waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neur We repeat this process for the output layer neurons, using the output from the
al
hidden layer neurons as inputs.
Heres the output for :
20 Apr
Embed View on Twitter
And carrying out the same process for we get:
Calculating the Total Error
We can now calculate the error for each output neuron using the squared error
function and sum them to get the total error:
Some sources refer to the target as the ideal and the output as the actual.
The is included so that exponent is cancelled when we differentiate later

on. The result is eventually multiplied by a learning rate anyway so it
doesnt matter that we introduce a constant here [1].
For example, the target output for is 0.01 but the neural network output
0.75136507, therefore its error is:
Repeating this process for (remembering that the target is 0.99) we get:
The total error for the neural network is the sum of these errors:
The Backwards Pass
Our goal with backpropagation is to update each of the weights in the network
so that they cause the actual output to be closer the target output, thereby
minimizing the error for each output neuron and the network as a whole.
Output Layer
Consider . We want to know how much a change in affects the total error,
aka .
is read as the partial derivative of with respect to . You

can also say the gradient with respect to .
By applying the chain rule we know that:
Visually, heres what were doing:
We need to figure out each piece in this equation.
First, how much does the total error change with respect to the output?
is sometimes expressed as
When we take the partial derivative of the total error with respect to ,
the quantity becomes zero because does not
affect it which means were taking the derivative of a constant which is
zero.
Next, how much does the output of change with respect to its total net input?
The partial derivative of the logistic function is the output multiplied by 1 minus
the output:
Finally, how much does the total net input of change with respect to ?
Putting it all together:
Youll often see this calculation combined in the form of the delta rule:
Alternatively, we have and which can be written as ,

aka (the Greek letter delta) aka the node delta. We can use this to
rewrite the calculation above:
Therefore:
Some sources extract the negative sign from so it would be written as:
To decrease the error, we then subtract this value from the current weight
(optionally multiplied by some learning rate, eta, which well set to 0.5):
Some sources use (alpha) to represent the learning rate, others use
(eta), and others even use (epsilon).
We can repeat this process to get the new weights , , and :
We perform the actual updates in the neural network after we have the new
weights leading into the hidden layer neurons (ie, we use the original weights,
not the updated weights, when we continue the backpropagation algorithm
below).
Hidden Layer
Next, well continue the backwards pass by calculating new values for , ,
, and .
Big picture, heres what we need to figure out:
Visually:
Were going to use a similar process as we did for the output layer, but slightly
different to account for the fact that the output of each hidden layer neuron
contributes to the output (and therefore error) of multiple output neurons. We
know that affects both and therefore the needs to take
into consideration its effect on the both output neurons:
Starting with :
We can calculate using values we calculated earlier:
And is equal to :
Plugging them in:
Following the same process for , we get:
Therefore:
Now that we have , we need to figure out and then for each
weight:
We calculate the partial derivative of the total net input to with respect to
the same as we did for the output neuron:
Putting it all together:
You might also see this written as:
We can now update :
Repeating this for , , and
Finally, weve updated all of our weights! When we fed forward the 0.05 and 0.1
inputs originally, the error on the network was 0.298371109. After this first round
of backpropagation, the total error is now down to 0.291027924. It might not
seem like much, but after repeating this process 10,000 times, for example, the
error plummets to 0.000035085. At this point, when we feed forward 0.05 and
0.1, the two outputs neurons generate 0.015912196 (vs 0.01 target) and
0.984065734 (vs 0.99 target).
If youve made it this far and found any errors in any of the above or can think of
any ways to make it clearer for future readers, dont hesitate to drop me a note.
Thanks!
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392 thoughts on A Step by Step BackpropagationExample
Older Comments
yoba
April 16, 2017 at 5:05 am
Very comprehensive and useful example. Many thanks !
Reply
Himanshu
April 17, 2017 at 5:25 am
While calculating w1, shoul i use updated w5 or original w5?
Reply
MaviccPRP
April 18, 2017 at 2:39 am
Really good tutorial Matt. I finally had something like a aha moment ;-)
With the inspiration of this tutorial I translated this real number example into matrix
multiplication operations.
Reply
jerpint
April 18, 2017 at 1:13 pm
Hello, thanks for your explanation. Can you please clarify why the biases b1 and b2 are
the same for their entire
respective layers? Shouldnt we have a bias vector b of the same length as the number of
neurons per layer?
Reply
Paul Martin
April 18, 2017 at 2:39 pm
Like to print things out and read over. Seems like the print out starts omitting detail once
it hits the hidden layers. Odd. All in all this is quite helpful to understand the back
propagation.
Reply
Ab
April 24, 2017 at 5:35 pm
Really appreciate this, thanks!
Reply
KG
April 25, 2017 at 7:41 pm
thank you very much best explaining i have ever seen
Reply
mahdi
April 25, 2017 at 7:52 pm
that was very helpful < thanx from a fighter in

mahadi army
Reply
Older Comments
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5/1/2017 A Step by Step Backpropagation Example Matt Mazur

Follow via Email

Luma Theodoro Heres the basic structure:

Here you have a panel of

Matt Mazur Retweeted

Avoiding the trap of low-

The Forward Pass

Heres how we calculate the total net input for :

Matt Mazur Retweeted

Heres the output for :

Embed View on Twitter

And carrying out the same process for we get:

Calculating the Total Error

The is included so that exponent is cancelled when we differentiate later

The Backwards Pass

is read as the partial derivative of with respect to . You

By applying the chain rule we know that:

Visually, heres what were doing:

We need to figure out each piece in this equation.

Putting it all together:

Alternatively, we have and which can be written as ,

We can repeat this process to get the new weights , , and :

Big picture, heres what we need to figure out:

We can calculate using values we calculated earlier:

Plugging them in:

Following the same process for , we get:

Putting it all together:

You might also see this written as:

We can now update :

Repeating this for , , and

Twitter Facebook 718

The State of Emergent Experimenting with a Emergent Mind #10

Introducing ABTestCalculator.com, TetriNET Bot Source Code Published

392 thoughts on A Step by Step BackpropagationExample

Very comprehensive and useful example. Many thanks !

While calculating w1, shoul i use updated w5 or original w5?

Really appreciate this, thanks!

thank you very much best explaining i have ever seen

that was very helpful < thanx from a fighter in

Enter your comment here...

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