What is the Degree of this Curve?

[mymachine]

I wonder how many degree of this curve where the endpoints are A0, A3, and A6?

Is it degree of 6?

 

[mathman]

The minimum degree polynomial, when given n points, is of degree n-1. You are given 7 points so the minimum fitting polynomial is of degree six.

 

[rcgldr]

The minimum degree polynomial, when given n points, is of degree n-1. You are given 7 points so the minimum fitting polynomial is of degree six.

Isn't this the maximum of the minimum degree polynomial that exactly fits n points? It's possible that the n points could be exactly fitted with a polynomial of lower degree.

 

[Petek]

You can use Lagrange interpolation to write down an explicit polynomial that passes through the given points. As the Wikipedia article notes, such a polynomial will be of minimum degree. However, what do you mean by saying that A3 is an endpoint?