# Find a best fitting curve for some data with no regular pattern

Suppose some data with no regular pattern is given, so common patterns of functions all fail to fit it. Then how can one find the best fitting curve? I believe there will be some data for which we can not find any regular pattern. One can try with the following data (luckily, we know that this sequence has a limit):

  {{1, 0.08888888888888872},{2, 0.13842641081508972},{3, 0.17153280014540232},
{4, 0.19586894934728782},{5, 0.21482500502852542},{6, 0.23017213935351592},
{7, 0.24294479920054762},{8, 0.25379708095478332},{9, 0.26316771779066082},
{10, 0.27136463872018062},{11, 0.27861184976714762},{12, 0.28507709754351612},
{13, 0.29088903838678592},{14, 0.29614834727916052},{15, 0.30093516063430942},
{16, 0.30531421254734282},{17, 0.30933847047870212},{18, 0.31305176609215322},
{19, 0.3164907360488469}}


Any help or suggestion will be appreciated!

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This reply of mine fits inerpolation functions to data. No equation is used. –  Hugh Jul 17 at 20:03

May be something here of use: http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/14232/363

data=
{{1, 0.08888888888888872},{2, 0.13842641081508972},{3, 0.17153280014540232},
{4, 0.19586894934728782},{5, 0.21482500502852542},{6, 0.23017213935351592},
{7, 0.24294479920054762},{8, 0.25379708095478332},{9, 0.26316771779066082},
{10, 0.27136463872018062},{11, 0.27861184976714762},{12, 0.28507709754351612},
{13, 0.29088903838678592},{14, 0.29614834727916052},{15, 0.30093516063430942},
{16, 0.30531421254734282},{17, 0.30933847047870212},{18, 0.31305176609215322},
{19, 0.3164907360488469}};

nlm = NonlinearModelFit[data, {a + b Log[c x], c > 0}, {a, b, c}, x];
Print@Normal@nlm;
Print@FindFit[data, {a + b Log[c x], c > 0}, {a, b, c}, x];
Show[Plot[nlm[x], {x, 1, Length@data}, PlotRange -> All],
ListPlot[data, PlotStyle -> Directive[Red, PointSize[0.02]]]]


See also, http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/tutorial/CurveFitting.html - particularly the section: 'Searching for general fits to data'.

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Thanks very much! As the example in the question, I can give more data and the sequence has a limit. But in more general case waht if we can not find a common pattern of function to fit the data very well? –  Eden Harder Aug 15 '13 at 10:12
I've added a link to the curve fitting tutorial. There are only a few general cases to try before one may need to resort to a polynomial fit. –  Chris Degnen Aug 15 '13 at 10:19
Thanks a lot! As the example in the question, I have try some possible cases. Since the sequence will converge, a polynomial fit will not help after all. –  Eden Harder Aug 15 '13 at 10:41

Functions are like vectors. Actually you can define a vector space over functions. We can describe any vector in terms of 3 independent vector which may not be orthogonal to each other. Similarly, you can fit a function in terms of other linearly independent functions. The easiest case is fitting to a polynomial of order n. Depending on how well your data can be fit you can set n. Another example is fitting to a series of Sine and Cose functions(Discrete Fourier transform). One other example is fitting to Gaussian functions with different mean and standard deviation.

data = {{1, 0.08888888888888872}, {2, 0.13842641081508972}, {3,
0.17153280014540232}, {4, 0.19586894934728782}, {5,
0.21482500502852542}, {6, 0.23017213935351592}, {7,
0.24294479920054762}, {8, 0.25379708095478332}, {9,
0.26316771779066082}, {10, 0.27136463872018062}, {11,
0.27861184976714762}, {12, 0.28507709754351612}, {13,
0.29088903838678592}, {14, 0.29614834727916052}, {15,
0.30093516063430942}, {16, 0.30531421254734282}, {17,
0.30933847047870212}, {18, 0.31305176609215322}, {19,
0.3164907360488469}};


Fit to Cos functions:

model2 = Sum[Subscript[a, n]*Cos[(2*Pi)/T*n*x], {n, 0, 20}];
sol = FindFit[data , {model2, T > 100},  Flatten[{Table[{Subscript[a, i]}, {i, 0, 20}], T}], x]


Fit to polynomial:

model1 = Sum[Subscript[a, i]*x^i, {i, 0, 5}];
sol = FindFit[data , {model1},  Flatten[{Table[{Subscript[a, i]}, {i, 0, 5}]}], x]


Fit to Gaussian functions:

Here I took only 3 Gaussian function, for better fit either you need more Gaussian functions or a better initial guess and constraints.

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In version 10.2 there is a new experimental function which might be what you are looking for: FindFormula.

I suspect that a genetic programming algorithm (symbolic regression) is behind this new feature.

See also my question here: What is behind Mathematica's experimental FindFormula function?

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Sadly, this dataset is too small for FindFormula to produce sensible results. Some of its' fits are pretty nice, but at least in this case it also produces plenty of fits which are total garbage from an intuitive standpoint. I believe FindFormula needs datasets to be at least a magnitude larger not to suffer from crazy over-fitting. It's also notable that FindFormula depends on randomness on its' search; it may return different results on every invocation. –  kirma Jul 18 at 6:47