A Method of Computing Periods of Cyclic Phenomena

Use of an analysis of Expected Mean Square Deviation to search for periodicities in an observational data sample is described. The statistic for testing the null hypothesis of non-periodicity is derived from a partitioning of the total sum of squared deviations from the mean. Unlike most existing methods, the present one does not require equally spaced observations. No assumptions are made concerning the statistical nature of spacing intervals. The method is illustrated by numerical examples.