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Write $1$ for the all-ones vector and setThe centering assumption makes $P_0{P}_X=0$. Thus the full normal linear model has fitted-value orthogonal projection $P_0+P_X$, and its residual sum of squares is $R=Y^{\mathsf{T}}(I-P_0-P_X)Y$. Assume $\nu >0$, as is needed to estimate the unknown error variance from residuals.

For the null that all slopes vanish, the reduced fitted value is $\bar{Y}1$, with residual sum of squares $R_0=Y^{\mathsf{T}}(I-P_0)Y$. The F-test isReject for an upper-tail value exceeding the $1-\alpha$ quantile of this F-distribution. The required theorem is Cochran's theorem: for an isotropic normal distribution, projections onto orthogonal subspaces are independent, and the squared norm on a rank-$r$ subspace divided by ${\sigma }^2$ has a chi-squared distribution with $r$ degrees of freedom. Here the null makes the projected mean in $\mathrm{col}(X)$ zero, so $(R_0-R)/{\sigma }^2\sim {\chi }_p^2$, independently of $R/{\sigma }^2\sim {\chi }_{\nu }^2$.

Let $p_1,p_2$ be the numbers of columns in the two predictor blocks. To test the first block while retaining the second as nuisance, formThe partial F-test for nested linear models isAgain reject in the upper tail. The difference of the nested fitted-value projections has rank $p_1$, is orthogonal to the full residual projection, and annihilates the null mean, which gives the same independent chi-squared argument. If a block has no columns, the corresponding test is vacuous.

The phrase orthogonal statistical parameters refers to zero cross-block Fisher information, not to the numerical parameter vectors being perpendicular. In this model the cross-block information is $X_1^{\mathsf{T}}{X}_2/{\sigma }^2$, so the orthogonal coefficient blocks in a centered normal linear model condition isThen the two fitted subspaces are orthogonal, the block least-squares estimators have zero covariance and are independent because they are jointly Gaussian, and each block's extra sum of squares is unchanged by including the other block. Centering also makes both blocks orthogonal to the intercept.