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Mathematics

The Method of Least Squares and Fitting a Line to Data

Quick fact

The method was developed independently by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Adrien-Marie Legendre in the early 1800s and was used to predict the orbit of the dwarf planet Ceres.

Why this is interesting

You have a scatter of points on a graph—how do you draw the 'best' straight line through them? There's a surprising mathematical answer that has powered science for over 200 years.