2003/10/20 by Andrew Gould, Gould, Andrew
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Scientific Research and Discoveries #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0310577
10 pages, plain tex
arxiv created 2003/10/20 · openalex publication_date 2003/10/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The mathematics of linear fits is presented in covariant form. Topics include: correlated data, covariance matrices, joint fits to multiple data sets, constraints, and extension of the formalism to non-linear fits. A brief summary at the end provides a convenient crib sheet. These are somewhat amplified notes from a 90 minute lecture in a first-year graduate course. None of the results are new. They are presented here because they do not appear to be elsewhere available in compact form.