Answers.Body: <p>Having the weights between 0 and 1 helps accelerate learning. They do not have to be between 0 and 1.
  Typically the weights get normalized to [-1, 1]. But it also depends on your problem.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-03-05T09:05:45.330Z
Answers.Text: Can you provide some evidence for the claim "Having the weights between 0 and 1 helps accelerate learning."? Have you observed this empirically? If yes, it might be a good idea to provide the link to such an experiment. If you have seen this written in a research paper or book, cite it.
Answers.UserDisplayName: nbro
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-03-04T14:00:24.430Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2022-03-04T14:00:24.430Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jakob G
Body: <p>I've been reading about neural networks for a long time, and I saw that in each one, the weights are always between 0 and 1. Why is this? I tried programming one, but the sigmoid function just seemed like one more thing to make it more complicated, without need. Why couldn't the range of a weight or neuron value be infinite?</p>
  
Tags: <neural-networks><weights><artificial-neuron>
Title: Why do neural network weights have to be between 0 and 1?
UserDisplayName: Blue Herring
ThreadText: # Why do neural network weights have to be between 0 and 1?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2022-03-04)
  
  I've been reading about neural networks for a long time, and I saw that in each one, the weights are always between 0 and 1. Why is this? I tried programming one, but the sigmoid function just seemed like one more thing to make it more complicated, without need. Why couldn't the range of a weight or neuron value be infinite?
  
  **Tags:** neural-networks, weights, artificial-neuron
  
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  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2022-03-04. Score: 1 | Accepted answer
  
  Having the weights between 0 and 1 helps accelerate learning. They do not have to be between 0 and 1.
  Typically the weights get normalized to [-1, 1]. But it also depends on your problem.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: Can you provide some evidence for the claim "Having the weights between 0 and 1 helps accelerate learning."? Have you observed this empirically? If yes, it might be a good idea to provide the link to such an experiment. If you have seen this written in a research paper or book, cite it.  
  
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