Thus far we have been fitting by eye. In order to make the fitting more quantitative, we introduce a quantitative measure of how close the fit and the data are. The difference between a fit point and a data point is found by subtracting one from the other. The difference may be positive or negative. Hence we square the difference giving a quantity that is always positive and has its minimum (0) when the data and the fit are equal. Enter the appropriate formula in the next column as shown below.

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