Note that the solution to the XOR problem requires a network of units with nonlinear activation functions. A network made up of simple linear (perceptron) units cannot solve the XOR problem. This is because a network formed by many layers of purely linear units can always be reduced (i.e., shown to be computationally identical to) a single layer of linear units with appropriate weights, and we've already shown (visually, in Fig. 7 .5) that a single unit cannot solve the XOR problem. We'll return to this question on page 137.