Monthly Archives: July 2026

Problem: Explain what an MLIP is. Solution: A better name might have been MLPES (machine-learned potential energy surface), but MLIP (machine-learned interatomic potential) is the standard term (it should not be confused with e.g. a pairwise interaction potential like the … Continue reading →

Problem: Let \(p(r_{t+1},s_{t+1}|s_t)\) be a Markov reward process. Compare constant-\(\alpha\) Monte Carlo (MC) evaluation and \(n\)-step constant-\(\alpha\) temporal difference (TD) evaluation. Solution: Essentially, TD is a bootstrapped version of MC, and indeed it turns out \(\lim_{n\to\infty}\text{TD}_{(n,\alpha)}=\text{MC}_{\alpha}\). That is, both TD … Continue reading →