Day 19 - Linear regression

One of the older algorithms, it has been around for about 200 years. A straight line has an equation of the form: y=mx+c where m is the gradient of the line and c is the value where the line cuts the y axis. The word regression comes from Francis Galton, in the 19th century he studied the heights of children and descendants of tall people. He found a trend which he called 'regression to the mean' in other words he found that the descendants tend towards a more usual height. The term regression in statistics has come to mean a measure of the relationship between the mean value of one variable (e.g. output) and corresponding values of other variables for example the average house price in an area over time.