Polynomial trendline order in Excel 2007

[Arnaud Miege]

Any particular reason why the maximum order for a polynomial trendline in
Excel 2007 is 6? This seems rather limiting. Any way of using a higher order
polynomial?

Thanks in advance,

Arnaud

 

[Jon Peltier]

FWIW, most poly fits of order six that you see in Excel have been
woefully overfitted. Most poly fits should not have an order higher than
two.

- Jon

 

[Bernard Liengme]

I concur with Jon (who is not know for lightly forgiving Microsoft for any
of its 'trespasses')
In the physical sciences, a fit with more than 4 terms is very rare
One has to ask: what is the meaning of these terms?
Mathematically, any N order pairs of data can be fitted to a N-1 order
polynomial (2 points -> straight line, 3 points -> a parabola, etc) but just
because we can make a fit it does not mean we necessarily know more about
the data.
best wishes