Write , let , let , and put . Assume the covariance matrix is invertible. Because the mean is known to be zero, every linear predictor is unbiased. Its mean squared prediction error is
Completing the square yields
The positive-definite matrix property makes the last term nonnegative, proving the simple kriging formulas
The residual is uncorrelated with . Since the joint law is multivariate normal, it is independent of , so the same predictor and variance describe the conditional distribution. Consequently a 95-percent prediction interval is
There is no constraint that the weights sum to one: that is required for an unknown constant mean in ordinary kriging, not for the stated known-zero-mean problem. If is singular, use a Moore-Penrose inverse with the corresponding covariance compatibility condition. At an already observed location prediction of that very same field value has zero error; predicting an independent noisy replicate is a different target. Estimated covariance parameters make this a plug-in interval and generally add uncertainty that the formula does not include.