I am new to math. How to approach the following problem?
$\min_{a,b} \sum_{t=1}^N (-4aX_t\sin(Z_tb) -4aY_t\cos(Z_tb)+a^2Z_t^2 + X_t^2 + Y_t^2)$
where $X_t,Y_t,Z_t$ for $t\in \{1,...N\}$ are given. Say $N$ is around 800.
Do I need software? Which? I am not having luck with simple optim()
in R, but maybe I am using wrong parameters.
Would this be a problem that could be solved in Mathematica? (I don't have access to Mathematica, and am also not familiar with it. I just heard that it is powerful.)