Beginning Anomaly Detection Using

 What Is a Boltzmann Machine?

A 

Boltzmann machine is a special type of bidirectional neural network comprised 

only of hidden nodes and input nodes, designed to learn the probability distribution 

of a data set. What makes a Boltzmann machine special is that each and every node is 

interconnected to each other, meaning the neurons in the hidden layer are connected 

to each other as well. Additionally, the Boltzmann machine has fixed weights, and the 

nodes make 

stochastic (probabilistic) decisions about whether or not to fire.

To better understand the model, let’s take a look at an example in Figure 

5-1

.

---

180

Despite there being a distinction between visible nodes and hidden nodes, that 

doesn’t matter in a Boltzmann machine. In this model, every node communicates to 

every other node, and the entire model works as a system to create a