The maths you need to start understanding LLMs

Shared from gilesthomas.com on April 12, 2026.

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Giles Thomas, Giles' blog,

This is a useful bridge for software developers who can build with LLM APIs but want to understand the math vocabulary underneath attention, embeddings, optimization, and probabilities.

I like links like this because they reduce magical thinking. You do not need a PhD to reason better about LLM systems, but you do need enough math to know what the abstractions are hiding.

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