Time Series - Introduction

A time series is a sequence of observations over a certain period. A univariate time series consists of the values taken by a single variable at periodic time instances over a period, and a multivariate time series consists of the values taken by multiple variables at the same periodic time instances over a period. The simplest example of a time series that all of us come across on a day to day basis is the change in temperature throughout the day or week or month or year.

The analysis of temporal data is capable of giving us useful insights on how a variable changes over time, or how it depends on the change in the values of other variable(s). This relationship of a variable on its previous values and/or other variables can be analyzed for time series forecasting and has numerous applications in artificial intelligence.