Question

Which shows the equation for the line of best fit for this data? Height (thousand ft) 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13 Temperature F\deg 78,74,70,62,55,50,46,40,33,31,30,27
A) y=-5x
b) y=5x+87
c) y=-5x+ 87
d) y=5x

Answer 1

That takes a bit of tedious calculation, but with the correct formula, anyone can find it:

Let our line of best fit have the form:

y=mx+b

m=(nΣxy-ΣxΣy)/(nΣx^2-ΣxΣx)

b=(Σy-mΣx)/n

Where of course Σ means the sum and n=number of elements in the data set.