Lagrange polynomial

Meaning

Noun

• For a given set of points $(x\_j,y\_j)$ with no two $x\_j$ values equal, the polynomial of lowest degree that assumes at each value $x\_j$ the corresponding value $y\_j$, so that the functions coincide at each point.

Origin

• Named after Joseph Louis Lagrange, who published on the topic in 1795, though the method was first discovered in 1779 by Edward Waring.