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Orthogonal linear regression is a standard statistical method which is used to fit a line to a scatter plot of data points ( x i , y i ) in situations where both variables have errors. Until now the US American R.J. Adcock has been considered to be the first who published this method, which is based on the method of least squares. We show that Julius Weisbach, professor of mathematics and engineering at Bergakademie Freiberg in Saxony (Germany) had already published in 1840 a paper in which the method is fully described and applied to an interesting problem. We discuss the context of his discovery in order to understand the type of problems mining surveyors faced in that time and why the use of this method was found to be relevant in geodesy. Weisbach's method of solution is then explained in all detail. We show that he implicitly used the method of least squares, but presented the solution in terms of geometrical arguments adapted to the readership of the journal in which he published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Founder of the Brussels Observatory, Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) is especially well known for his theory of the average man. Like the average position of a star obtained through a large quantity of observed data, the average man was, according to Quetelet, subject to fixed causal laws. Published in 1835, his book On Man: Essay of Social Physics is one of the founding works of sociology and mathematical statistics. The sources of the analogy between astronomy and social physics have been debated by historians. To shed light on this question and the conditions of application of mathematics in the 19th century, we publish for the first time a manuscript that is kept in Quetelet's papers at the Royal Academy of Belgium, and give an English translation of it. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]