Definition A.2.3 Line of Best Fit.
Given data vectors \(\vec{x}=\left(x_1, \dots, x_n\right)\) and \(\vec{y}=\left(y_1, \dots, y_n\right)\text{,}\) we seek the line of best fit:
\begin{equation*}
y=mx+b \, .
\end{equation*}
The following derivation of this line is visualized below as a single ’logical chain’ of matrix operations:
\begin{equation*}
\underbrace{
\begin{bmatrix}
x_1 & x_2 & \dots & x_n \\
1 & 1 & \dots & 1 \\
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix}
x_1 & 1 \\
x_2 & 1 \\
\vdots & \vdots \\
x_n & 1
\end{bmatrix}
}_{
\begin{bmatrix}
s_2 & s_1 \\
s_1 & n
\end{bmatrix}
}
\begin{bmatrix}
m \\
b
\end{bmatrix}
=
\underbrace{
\begin{bmatrix}
x_1 & x_2 & \dots & x_n \\
1 & 1 & \dots & 1
\end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix}
y_1 \\
y_2 \\
\vdots \\
y_n
\end{bmatrix}
}_{
\begin{bmatrix}
c_{xy} \\
c_y
\end{bmatrix}
} \, .
\end{equation*}
Here, the scalar sums are defined as:
\begin{equation*}
s_1 = \sum_{i=1}^n x_i \, , \quad
s_2 = \sum_{i=1}^n x_i^2 \, , \quad
c_{xy} = \sum_{i=1}^n x_i y_i \, , \quad
c_y = \sum_{i=1}^n y_i
\end{equation*}
