While I do spend lots of time pushing the idea of linear approximations on my students, we do need nonlinear functions to describe most interesting physical phenomena.

The Southern Economic Journal features original, refereed scholarly articles in all areas of economics as well as contributions on the pedagogy of economics. The journal also contains occasional ...

For this, you also need non-linear thresholding functions that adjust the weights between the layers of neurons.

Long wires or distant wireless communications always garble the transmission. How can an engineer cure that distortion? Turns out, a lot of math and a little experience can work wonders. This author ...

Linear and nonlinear programming to optimize the nutrient density of a population's diet: an example based on diets of preschool children in rural Malawi. Am J Clin Nutr 2002; 75: 245–253.