200 years of least squares method (Q699850)

The title of this paper, apparently written for nonspecialists, bespeaks the quality of its language. The authors dwell on the re-discovery of the small planet Ceres after Gauss, by means of scarce observations, had calculated its orbit; describe Gauss' first justification of the method of least squares; list other, partly post-Gaussian developments; and illustrate the application of the method, in particular to the estimation of the precision of Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of a regular polyhedron. The authors use the (seemingly dated) misnomer ``Gauss-Markov theorem'' and drop a few careless statements.