Matthew Mayo does a bit of kernel work:
Kernel methods are a powerful class of machine learning algorithm that allow us to perform complex, non-linear transformations of data without explicitly computing the transformed feature space. These methods are particularly useful when dealing with high-dimensional data or when the relationship between features is non-linear.
Kernel methods rely on the concept of a kernel function, which computes the dot product of two vectors in a transformed feature space without explicitly performing the transformation. This is known as the kernel trick. The kernel trick allows us to work in high-dimensional spaces efficiently, making it possible to solve complex problems that would be computationally infeasible otherwise.
Read on for the pros and cons of kernel methods and a pair of techniques that use them.