Least Squares

​
x
Axbresidual r = 1.36558minimal residual 
r
min
 = 1.00394
When a matrix A is square with full rank, there is a vector
x
that satisfies the equation
Ax=b
for any
b
. However, when A is not square or does not have full rank, such an
x
may not exist, because b does not lie in the range of A. In this case, called the least squares problem, we seek the vector x that minimizes the length (or norm) of the residual vector
r=Ax-b
. The four vectors
Ax
,
b
,
r
, and
r
min
are color coded and the plane is the range of the matrix
A
. The plane shown is the set of all possible vectors
Ax
.

External Links

Matrix (Wolfram MathWorld)
Rectangular Matrix (Wolfram MathWorld)
Least Squares Fitting (Wolfram MathWorld)
Matrix Rank (Wolfram MathWorld)
Norm (Wolfram MathWorld)
L2-Norm (Wolfram MathWorld)
Vector Norm (Wolfram MathWorld)

Permanent Citation

Chris Maes
​
​"Least Squares"​
​http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/LeastSquares/​
​Wolfram Demonstrations Project​
​Published: October 7, 2008