Curve Fitting

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Session Overview

Diagram of spring under tension.

This lecture is about how to use computation to help understand experimental data. It talks about using linear regression to fit a curve to data, and introduces the coefficient of determination as a measure of the tightness of a fit.

Session Activities

Lecture Videos

About this Video

Topics covered: Arrays, curve fitting, numpy, pylab, least squares fit, prediction.

Resources

Recitation Videos

About this Video

Topics covered: Data distributions, mean, standard deviation, Monte Carlo simulations, Monty Hall problem, Riemann sum method, data regressions, r^2 (r-squared), coefficient of termination, scientific applications of programming.

Check Yourself

What is an objective function?

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One that provides a quantitative assessment of how well the curve fits the data.

 

 

What method of curve fitting is used by polyfit?

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Linear regression.

 

 

What does curve fitting do?

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Relates an independent variable to an estimated value of a dependent variable.

 

 

What is the coefficient of determination?

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Coefficient of determination, R^2, is equal to 1 – (estimated error)/(variance of the actual data)

 

 

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