Lagrange polynomial interpolation
Interpolación polinómica de Lagrange
- Date
- 1779 · confidence high
- Place
- Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Edward Waring (later formalized by Lagrange)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Mathematician Edward Waring, Lucasian professor at Cambridge, published in 1779 the method for constructing the lowest-degree polynomial passing through a given set of points. Euler gave an equivalent formula in 1783, and Lagrange, whose name became attached to the method, published it in 1795.
Despite the name, Lagrange was not the first: Waring published it sixteen years earlier, in 1779, and Euler gave an equivalent formula in 1783.
What it led to
- Numerical integration via Newton–Cotes formulas
- Shamir's Secret Sharing scheme
- Reed–Solomon error-correcting codes