Editing Difference engine (section)

=== Curve fitting ===
The problem with the methods described above is that errors will accumulate and the series will tend to diverge from the true function. A solution which guarantees a constant maximum error is to use [[curve fitting]]. A minimum of ''N'' values are calculated evenly spaced along the range of the desired calculations. Using a curve fitting technique like [[Gaussian reduction]] an ''N''−1th degree [[polynomial interpolation]] of the function is found.<ref name="Thelen" /> With the optimized polynomial, the initial values can be calculated as above.