# Is time series related to series?

This may be a dumb question. If I understand correctly, a time series is defined as a sample path of a discrete-time stochastic process. So isn't a "time series" a sequence? Why is it called as if it were a series? Isn't "time sequence" more proper a name?

Thanks and regards!

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The sequence/series distinction that we try (often unsuccessfully) to establish in first-year calculus is not a universal one. In ordinary English, we may talk for example about a series of catastrophes. –  André Nicolas May 25 '11 at 20:58
According to "Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics", the term “time series” appears in W. M. Persons’s “The Correlation of Economic Statistics,” Publications of the American Statistical Association, 12, (1910), 287-322. I guess it's too late to change now. –  Robert Israel May 25 '11 at 21:32

## 2 Answers

This is merely an example of an inconsistent naming convention. You are likely to come across many more of them if you study mathematics for any length of time!

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Sequence might be a better term than series, but I don't see it as horribly bad. After all we call the baseball championships the World Series describing a sequence of 4 to 7 games. A time series is after all a series of numbers in a time sequence. So what's so bad about calling it a time series?

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