Two good general methods are 1. perturbing the data slightly (since all real data is noisy) and seeing if this changes your curve fit wildly. If the parameters of the fit are very sensitive to the data, you shouldn’t trust it. 2. cross-validation: hide some of the data points, fit the curve to the rest, and then see how well your fit recovers the ones you hid. - Cris
On Sep 23, 2018, at 8:32 AM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
The following xkcd comic (#2048) is funny, but it brings up a good point: are there any good methods for deciding when a particular curve fits a particular set of data points?
Should statistics & spreadsheet programs utilize such a method to warn users that the fit they've chosen isn't very good?
I've thought of somehow using color along the curve to indicate where the fit is good (perhaps "green") and portions along the curve where the fit isn't so good (perhaps "red"). A *spline* curve could also indicate its tension by means of color, for example. (Of course, none of this is going to help those who are color blind!)
_______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun