The lm() function can also accommodate non-linear transformations of the predictors. For instance, given a predictor \(X\), we can create a predictor \(X^2\) using I(X^2). The wrapper function I() is needed since the ^ has a special meaning in a formula (see ?formula). Wrapping allows the standard usage in R, which is to raise \(X\) to the power 2. We now perform a regression of medv onto lstat and lstat².

> lm.fit2 <- lm(medv ~ lstat + I(lstat^2))
> summary(lm.fit2)

Call:
lm(formula = medv ~ lstat + I(lstat^2))

Residuals:
     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max 
-15.2834  -3.8313  -0.5295   2.3095  25.4148 

Coefficients:
             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept) 42.862007   0.872084   49.15   <2e-16 ***
lstat       -2.332821   0.123803  -18.84   <2e-16 ***
I(lstat^2)   0.043547   0.003745   11.63   <2e-16 ***
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Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 5.524 on 503 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared:  0.6407,	Adjusted R-squared:  0.6393 
F-statistic: 448.5 on 2 and 503 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

Try adding an lstat³ term to the model and store the model in lm.fit3:

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Assume that:

• The MASS library has been loaded
• The Boston dataset has been loaded and attached