Any particular reason why the maximum order for a polynomial trendline in
Excel 2007 is 6? This seems rather limiting. Any way of using a higher order
polynomial?

Thanks in advance,

Arnaud

FWIW, most poly fits of order six that you see in Excel have been
woefully overfitted. Most poly fits should not have an order higher than
two.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
http://peltiertech.com/



Arnaud Miege wrote:
Any particular reason why the maximum order for a polynomial trendline in
Excel 2007 is 6? This seems rather limiting. Any way of using a higher order
polynomial?

Thanks in advance,

Arnaud

I concur with Jon (who is not know for lightly forgiving Microsoft for any
of its 'trespasses')
In the physical sciences, a fit with more than 4 terms is very rare
One has to ask: what is the meaning of these terms?
Mathematically, any N order pairs of data can be fitted to a N-1 order
polynomial (2 points - straight line, 3 points - a parabola, etc) but just
because we can make a fit it does not mean we necessarily know more about
the data.
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme
remove caps from email


"Arnaud Miege" wrote in message
...
Any particular reason why the maximum order for a polynomial trendline in
Excel 2007 is 6? This seems rather limiting. Any way of using a higher
order polynomial?

Thanks in advance,

Arnaud