A natural spline is a piecewise polynomial function that is used for interpolation, specifically designed to maintain smoothness at the knots while having no constraints on the second derivative at the endpoints. This means that the second derivative of the spline is set to zero at the boundary points, allowing for a natural continuation of the curve beyond the data points. This property makes natural splines particularly useful in applications where a smooth curve is needed without introducing additional oscillations at the edges.
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