Introduction

The first example of time series analysis in human history occurred in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians recorded the inundation (rise) and relinquishment (fall) of the Nile river every day, noting when fertile silt and moisture occurred. Based on these records, they found that the inundation period began when the sun rose at the same time as the Sirius star system became visible. By being able to predict the inundation period, the ancient Egyptians were able to make sophisticated agricultural decisions, greatly improving the yield of their farming activities.

As demonstrated by the ancient Egyptian inundation period example, time series analysis is a method that can extract patterns or meaningful statistics from data with temporal information. It allows us to forecast future values based on observed results. One can apply time series analysis to any data that has temporal information. For example, an economist can perform time series analysis to predict the GDP growth rate...