Body: <p>Pretty much the title.
  I'm no expert but from what I know, if you add up enough sine functions with proper amplitudes and frequencies you can get any function you want as a result. With that knowledge, wouldn't it make sense to have neuron's activation function be a sine function?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2020-09-25T20:53:26.120Z
Comments.Text: There was once [a similar question](https://ai.stackexchange.com/q/22100/2444), which I answered by saying that the sine is periodic, and that may not be desirable. Doesn't the Fourier transform assume that you have like complex coefficients or something? I don't recall anymore.
Comments.UserDisplayName: nbro
Tags: <neural-networks><activation-functions>
Title: Why is sine activation function not used frequently since we know from fourier transforms that sine functions can combine to fit any function?
UserDisplayName: user1477107
ThreadText: # Why is sine activation function not used frequently since we know from fourier transforms that sine functions can combine to fit any function?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2020-09-25)
  
  Pretty much the title.
  I'm no expert but from what I know, if you add up enough sine functions with proper amplitudes and frequencies you can get any function you want as a result. With that knowledge, wouldn't it make sense to have neuron's activation function be a sine function?
  
  **Tags:** neural-networks, activation-functions
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: There was once [a similar question](https://ai.stackexchange.com/q/22100/2444), which I answered by saying that the sine is periodic, and that may not be desirable. Doesn't the Fourier transform assume that you have like complex coefficients or something? I don't recall anymore.  
  
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  ## 0 answers
  
  