A mechanical analogy in the estimation of rotation and scale parameters between coordinate systems

Abstract

In this note of didactical character, starting from the observation that the normal submatrix J matrix, relevant to the least squares
estimation process of the rotation parameters in the Helmert model, has the form of the inertia tensor, a justification is given using a
simple mechanical analogy. In this process, the residuals quadratic form to be minimized is interpreted in terms of energy.