APPLICATION OF MATRIX ALGEBRA TO DETERMINE OXIDE FACTORS

The method described is easy to program and involves only a few second s runs time even on a slightly dated personal computer. The factors ob tained are an optimum set in the sense that they satisfy the principle of least squares. Results are summarised for three series of glasses. For the most recently published set of data the mean difference betwe en the measured and calculated values of thermal expansion of a series of 39 glasses is 2.3x10(-4) units and the variance of this difference is 0.44 units (1 unit is 1x10(-7)/K). The method as applied here assu mes that the dependence of the property on glass composition is linear .