Title: Fitting linear relationships : a history of the calculus of observations 1750-1900 /
Authors: Farebrother, R. W., 1946-
Publisher: Springer,
Year: 1999
Subjects: Mathematical statistics History
Abstract: "This book describes the development between 1750 and 1900 of what we would now regard as a class of statistical fitting procedures. In their early stages, these procedures had very little statistical content, and we therefore refer to the subject area by its historical name of the calculus of observations." "The book contains detailed algebraic descriptions of the fitting of linear relationships by the method of least squares and the closely related least absolute deviations and minimax absolute deviations procedures. These traditional fitting procedures are of course addressed in conventional statistical textbooks, but in such books the discussion of their historical background is usually extremely slight if not entirely absent." "The primary audience for this book will be statisticians concerned with the fitting of linear models. However, it will also be of interest to engineers and scientists concerned with the empirical determination of linear relationships."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: Ch. 1. Introduction -- Ch. 2. The Methods of Boscovich and Mayer -- Ch. 3. Laplace's Work on the Methods of Boscovich and Mayer -- Ch. 4. Laplace's Minimax Procedure -- Ch. 5. The Method of Least Squares -- Ch. 6. Statistical Foundations of the Method of Least Squares -- Ch. 7. Adrain's Work on the Normal Law -- Ch. 8. Gauss's Most Probable Values -- Ch. 9. Laplace's Most Advantageous Method -- Ch. 10. Gauss's Most Plausible Values -- Ch. 11. Gauss's Method of Adjustment by Correlates -- Ch. 12. Mechanical Analogies for the Method of Least Squares -- Ch. 13. Orthogonalisation Procedures -- Ch. 14. Thiele's Derivation of the Method of Least Squares -- Ch. 15. Later Work on the Method of Situation -- Ch. 16. Concluding Remarks.