What is linear regression?

Linear regression is a statistical method used to model the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables by fitting a linear equation to the observed data. It aims to find the best-fitting straight line (in simple linear regression) that predicts the value of the dependent variable based on the values of the independent variables. Linear regression is widely used in data analysis, forecasting, and machine learning for tasks such as predicting trends and estimating relationships between variables. It is one of the simplest and most interpretable techniques in statistics and predictive modeling.