Information and accuracy attainable in the estimation of statistical parameters

Abstract

The earliest method of estimation of statistical parameters is the method of least squares due to Markoff. A set of observations whose expectations are linear functions of a number of unknown parameters being given, the problem which Markoff posed for solution is to find out a linear function of observations whose expectation is an assigned linear function of the unknown parameters and whose variance is a minimum. There is no assumption about the distribution of the observations except that each has a finite variance.