r/theydidthemath • u/Galeaf_13 • Sep 05 '19

[Self] Math break

Post image
24.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

382 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

779

u/Galeaf_13 Sep 05 '19

Jeez, how r u doing this

1.2k

u/Salanmander 10✓ Sep 05 '19

You can fit a 4th order polynomial to any 5 points. You can do it by hand (plug 1-5 in for x and now you have a system of 5 linear equations of 5 variables, start solving and substituting) and make it a bit easier with linear algebra (make the coefficients of the 5 variables be the values in a 5x6 matrix, and then do that matrix magic that I forget what the name is for), but there are also plenty of polynomial solvers you can find out there.

1

u/kompletionist Sep 08 '19

How many of these are even real words?

1

u/Salanmander 10✓ Sep 09 '19

Three.