The linear least squares problem is to find the that minimizes , which is equivalent to projecting to the subspace spanned by the columns of . Assuming the columns of (and hence ) are independent, the projection solution is found from . Now is square () and invertible, and also equal to . But the lower rows of zeros in are superfluous in the product, which is thus already in lower-triangular upper-triangular factored form, as in Gaussian elimination (Cholesky decomposition). Here orthogonality is important not only for reducing to , but also for allowing solution without magnifying numerical problems.
