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Comment by zmk_ | Hacker News Reader

The author rediscovered Newton's method. Next in line is the realisation that Hessian can be approximated and we will see the rediscovery of BFGS, L-BFGS, etc.

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It reminds me of this story from a decade back: https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/12/06/0416250/medical-...

I somehow find it more worrisome that someone who works as a "resarch advocate" and previously a "data scientist" thinks he's had novel insight into optimization over the weekend than that a medical doctor can't recognize that he's rediscovered basic numerical integration.

That is hilarious.

"The total area under a curve is computed by dividing the area under the curve between two designated values on the X-axis (abscissas) into small segments (rectangles and triangles) whose areas can be accurately calculated from their respective geometrical formulas."

I think it kinda cuts both ways, and people filled with self-doubt will undermine their own learning. When I was young, like 10-12, I basically independently discovered Scheme on paper, from boredom. I know I also independently discovered integration, it's just that my experience with other things that have names in maths told me that what I'd discovered was too obvious to have a name; so I didn't know anyone thought it was a big deal until much later.

It's a shame that it only works for glucose curves. Imagine if someone could generalize it :-)

Oh I remember this! Was hilarious!

That is not a complete summary of the technique, though. The key insight here isn't the integration method used. Rather it is applying integration (whatever method used) until the loss increases, then starting from scratch.

It's like saying that Maxwell's equations "are just general relativity."

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