Kernel PCA — when and how?
hardAnswer
- Apply the kernel trick to PCA: implicitly map data to a feature space Φ(x) via kernel K(x, y) = ⟨Φ(x), Φ(y)⟩, then do PCA there.
- Captures non-linear structure without explicit feature construction.
- Common kernels: RBF, polynomial, cosine.
- Cost memory (kernel matrix) — doesn't scale beyond ~10k.
- Modern replacement: autoencoders / UMAP for larger data.
Check yourself — multiple choice
- Same as PCA
- Kernel-trick PCA in RKHS via K(x,y); captures non-linear structure without explicit features; memory → replaced by autoencoders/UMAP at scale
- Random
- Not real
Kernel PCA: PCA in RKHS via kernel; memory limits scale.
#dimensionality-reduction#pca
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