Answer: (a) y = 2.7394x - 118.1368
(b) R² = 0.8215 or 82.15%
Explanation: Regression line is the best line that relates the variables in the data.
To calculate the fitted regression equation:
1) Calculate average of x-values (
) and average of y-values (
);
2) Calculate the slope, b, by doing:

3) Calculate y-intercept, a, by doing:

4) Then, it gives regression equation: y = bx + a
For the data on chemical reactions:
(a)
b = 2.7394

a = -118.1368
y = 2.7394x - 118.1368
The fittest regression equation is y = 2.7394x - 118.1368.
(b) R is correlation coefficient and measures the strength of the relationship between the variables. It is calculated as:
![R=\frac{n\Sigma(xy)-(\Sigma x)(\Sigma y)}{\sqrt{[n\Sigma x^(2)-(\Sigma x^(2))][n\Sigma y^(2)-(\Sigmay^(2))]} }](https://img.qammunity.org/2021/formulas/mathematics/college/gm64x4qfdv4nlt68k8caplef0nm79o7xuo.png)
For this fit, R = 0.9064
The variable R² is the coefficient of determination, is the square of correlation coefficient and is usually stated as a percent.
What the variable represents is the percent of variation in the dependent variable (y) explained by the variation in the independent variable (x).
For this fit:

0.8215
What it entails is that 82.15% of the variation of retention time is due to the molecular weight of each chemical compound.