1.. _chapter-history: 2 3======= 4History 5======= 6 7Ceres Solver grew out of the need for general least squares solving at 8Google. In early 2010, Sameer Agarwal and Fredrik Schaffalitzky 9started the development of Ceres Solver. Fredrik left Google shortly 10thereafter and Keir Mierle stepped in to take his place. After two 11years of on-and-off development, Ceres Solver was released as open 12source in May of 2012. 13 14Origin of the name 15------------------ 16 17While there is some debate as to who invented the method of Least 18Squares [Stigler]_, there is no debate that it was `Carl Friedrich 19Gauss 20<http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Gauss.html>`_ 21who brought it to the attention of the world. Using just 22 22observations of the newly discovered asteroid `Ceres 23<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)>`_, Gauss used the 24method of least squares to correctly predict when and where the 25asteroid will emerge from behind the Sun [TenenbaumDirector]_. We 26named our solver after Ceres to celebrate this seminal event in the 27history of astronomy, statistics and optimization. 28