Least Squares

What does “least” mean in “Least Squares”?

We want to find an estimate for the slope in 50 candidate slopes, so we just compute the RSS one by one. </ani>

library(animation)
saveHTML({
    ani.options(interval = 0.3)
    par(mar = c(4, 4, 0.5, 0.1), mgp = c(2, 0.5, 0), tcl = -0.3)
    ## slope changing
    least.squares()
}, img.name = "least_squares", htmlfile = "least_squares.html", 
    ani.height = 450, ani.width = 600, title = "Demonstration of Least Squares (Slope)", 
    description = c("We want to find an estimate for the slope in 50 candidate slopes, so we just compute the RSS one by one. "))

## or with intercept changing
saveHTML({
    ani.options(interval = 0.3)
    par(mar = c(4, 4, 0.5, 0.1), mgp = c(2, 0.5, 0), tcl = -0.3)
    # slope changing
    least.squares(ani.type = "intercept")
}, img.name = "least_squares", htmlfile = "least_squares.html", 
    ani.height = 450, ani.width = 600, title = "Demonstration of Least Squares (Slope)", 
    description = c("We want to find an estimate for the slope in 50 candidate slopes, so we just compute the RSS one by one. "))