What qualifies as a time series?

Question

I have a simple question: does any data gathered over time could be treated as a time series? For instance, if I measure CPU load at certain intervals, would that be a time series? Actually, I'm not interested on actual time of the measurement. I could simply mark the points along x-axis as 1, 2, 3, ... -- what is relevant to me is certain values at certain points of time.

Further, could I do time series analysis on the data set if I have irregular observation intervals?

Yes to everything, by definition. Wikipedia, Search 1, Search 2. — , Apr 25 '12 at 16:01
Also note that there are pros and cons to a time series because of the additional relationship of time: it gives you more information, but it also can tie things together in ways that can mislead you. — Wayne, Apr 25 '12 at 17:07
@Procrastinator, please visit http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/15660/166924. — whuber, Apr 25 '12 at 17:43
See https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/126791 (a later thread) for definitions of time series. — whuber, Aug 16 '18 at 13:03
Possible duplicate of Is a time series the same as a stochastic process? — kjetil b halvorsen, Sep 08 '19 at 22:40

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 16 '18 at 10:00

Partially answered in comments:

Yes to everything, by definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_series, https://www.google.com/search?q=Time+series, https://www.google.com/search?q=time+series+unequal+intervals. – user10525

Also note that there are pros and cons to a time series because of the additional relationship of time: it gives you more information, but it also can tie things together in ways that can mislead you. – Wayne

What qualifies as a time series?

1 Answers1