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Example 2 from Algebra and Trigonometry, 4.3 Fitting Linear Models to Data
Finding a Line of Best Fit
Find a linear function that fits the data in Table 1 by “eyeballing” a line that seems to fit.
Work it out on paper first. Then open the solution one step at a time, and stop as soon as you can finish on your own.
Solution
On a graph, we could try sketching a line. Using the starting and ending points of our hand drawn line, points (0, 30) and (50, 90), this graph has a slope of
and a y-intercept at 30. This gives an equation of
where is the number of chirps in 15 seconds, and is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. The resulting equation is represented in Figure 3.
Figure 3
How did it go?