Question

What does it mean to interpolate data?

Answer 1

Hint: To solve this question we will recall the definition of interpolation. Interpolate a data means to find the estimated unknown values by using the known data values. We will understand the concept by taking some examples.

Complete step by step solution:
We know that interpolation is a useful mathematical and statistical tool. This tool is useful to estimate the data points in between the given data. Interpolation is the method to find the estimated unknown values by using the known data values.
Some examples of interpolation are the estimation of geographical data such as noise level, rainfall, elevation etc.
There are different methods of interpolation are linear interpolation method, nearest neighbor method, cubic spline interpolation method, shape preservation method, thin-plate spline method, biharmonic interpolation method. linear interpolation is used to fill the unknown values in the data table.
Hence interpolation of data is to estimate the data within the given range of data.

Note: The concept of interpolation is useful in simplification of complicated functions by sampling any given data points and interpolating data points by using the simpler functions. As polynomials are easy to evaluate, differentiate, integrate, so we will generally use polynomials to interpolate. There is a concept named extrapolation which is a method of guessing a data point beyond the range of the given data set.