

If you know the relationship is non-linear, but don’t know exactly what that relationship is, one solution is to use linear basis function models- which are popular in machine learning.

Why? Because regression will always give you an equation, and it may not make any sense if your data follows an exponential model. You can also Find a linear regression by hand.īefore you try your calculations, you should always make a scatter plot to see if your data roughly fits a line. Most software packages and calculators can calculate linear regression. The result is a linear regression equation that can be used to make predictions about data. Linear regression is the most widely used statistical technique it is a way to model a relationship between two sets of variables.

Now we know those words are actually English and what they mean. That line is a simple linear regression trendline through a scatter plot. Could we draw a line through the dots that would show a trend? Let’s call that a trendline.
