How to use Regression In real life

[Soley101]

Hi, I had made an inquiry about regression last week and am still working on understanding the whole concept.This week my question is different. How would I use the a and b values of the regression to indicate how something is growing. Like I'm having problems interpreting data because I do not yet know the rules I suppose. Like if I am doing a regression expressing the mass in terms of length so m=al^b then how can i describe how a certain something is growing based on the regression. Like is there a way to say if b is less then one then mass is growing slower then length etc. Where can I find these rules on how the y-axis will act based on the xaixs. Any suggestions?

 

[Mark44]

Hi, I had made an inquiry about regression last week and am still working on understanding the whole concept.This week my question is different. How would I use the a and b values of the regression to indicate how something is growing. Like I'm having problems interpreting data because I do not yet know the rules I suppose. Like if I am doing a regression expressing the mass in terms of length so m=al^b then how can i describe how a certain something is growing based on the regression. Like is there a way to say if b is less then one then mass is growing slower then length etc. Where can I find these rules on how the y-axis will act based on the xaixs. Any suggestions?

Your question has less to do with regression, and is more related to the graphs of basic functions such as $y = x, y = x^2,$ and $y = x^{1/2} = \sqrt x$.
A common type of regression is linear regression, which you would use if the variable quantities you're looking at grow at about the same rate. On the other hand, if you are trying to come up with a formula for the masses of a number of cubes that are L units on a side, you would try to fit your measured data to a formula like this: $m = kL^3$, where k represents the density of the material.

For such a cube, if you double the length L, the mass will then be 8 times greater.

Here are a few graphs of some basic functions.