Wolfe Line Search Example


This graph attempts to show how a Wolfe Line Search works. The goal here is to move downwards along the gradient so that the loss is reduced sufficiently (controlled by the c1 parameter) and also that the slope of the loss is decreased sufficiently (controlled by the c2 parameter). Making sure the slope decreases sufficiently ensures that we don't take too many short steps. Note that c1 should always be less than c2 or this won't work appropiately

The goal here isn't to exactly find the best point along the line, but to cheaply find a good enough point. The black dots represent points that were calculated as part of doing the line search. Minimizing the total number of samples taken while still converging quickly is the goal here: