🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep9.150541.15735@cbfsb.cb.att.com>, rizzo@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (anthony.r.rizzo) writes:

> My quandary is that the polynomial does not pass
> through the one point of which I'm dead certain, (20,0).  

Let me summarize the posting, just to be sure we're working on the same
problem.  You have some data to which you would like to fit a 4-th degree
polynomial, but the curve doesn't go where you expect it to.

There are only two possibilities (well, 3, because I'm going to split #2):

1.  The data must lie within sampling variability of the curve, or

2.  You've got model failure.  If it's model failure, there are two
     possiblities
        
     2.i.  You've specified the wrong model, i.e., it's not a 4-th degree
            polynomial, or
     2.ii. Something went wrong in the data collection process, i.e., you've
            managed to generate some invalid data.