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Generating best-fit line formula for arbitrary list

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg103370] Generating best-fit line formula for arbitrary list
• From: Kelly Jones <kelly.terry.jones at gmail.com>
• Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:38:02 -0400 (EDT)

Mathematica's Fit function can find the best-fit line for a given List:

Fit[Table[Prime[n],{n,1,20}],{1,x},x]

I want Mathematica to spit out the formula for linear regression for
an arbitrary list. This fails:

Fit[s,{1,x},x]

since "First argument s in Fit is not a list or a rectangular array".

This works:

t = Table[s[n],{n,1,20}]
Fit[t,{1,x},x]

but is ugly and unhelpful, since it mentions each of the 20 terms
individually, and doesn't generalize to an arbitrary-size list.

I'm looking for things like Mean[t] or Apply[Plus,t^2] in the answer.

Can I make Mathematica give me the general formula here?

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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Generating best-fit line formula for arbitrary list
    • From: Matthias Bode <lvsaba@hotmail.com>