What is Least squares?
'''Least squares''' is the name of a procedure in [[mathematics]], to construct a [[function (mathematics)|function]] from a number of observed values. The basic idea is to construct the function in such a way that the sum of the difference between the observed value and its [[data point]] is minimized. Since the difference may go in either direction, the value of the difference is squared, for each value. [[Carl Friedrich Gauss]] said he developed the method in 1795. He used it to recover the lost asteroid [[1 Ceres]] and published it in 1807. He used ideas from [[Pierre-Simon Laplace]]. [[Adrien-Marie Legendre]] developed the same method independently, in 1805. == Related pages == * [[Normal distribution]] * [[Ordinary least squares]] ==Further reading== * Lawson, C. L., & Hanson, R. J. (1995). Solving least squares problems (Vol. 15). [[Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics|SIAM]]. * Bjorck, A. (1996). Numerical methods for least squares problems (Vol. 51). SIAM. {{Least squares and regression analysis}} {{authority control}} [[Category:Mathematical approximation]] [[Category:Statistics]]