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Sorting Lower Bound

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Sudeep Kumar Singh
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20 views2 pages

Sorting Lower Bound

Uploaded by

Sudeep Kumar Singh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Comparison-Based Sorting

Many sorting algorithms are comparison based.


They sort by making comparisons between pairs of objects
Sorting Lower Bound

 Examples: bubble-sort, selection-sort, insertion-sort, heap-sort,


merge-sort, quick-sort, ...
Let us therefore derive a lower bound on the running
time of any algorithm that uses comparisons to sort n
elements, x1, x2, …, xn.

no
Is xi < xj?

yes

© 2004 Goodrich, Tamassia Sorting Lower Bound 1 © 2004 Goodrich, Tamassia Sorting Lower Bound 2

Counting Comparisons Decision Tree Height


Let us just count comparisons then. The height of the decision tree is a lower bound on the running time
Every input permutation must lead to a separate leaf output
Each possible run of the algorithm corresponds If not, some input …4…5… would have same output ordering as
to a root-to-leaf path in a decision tree …5…4…, which would be wrong
Since there are n!=1⋅2 ⋅ … ⋅n leaves, the height is at least log (n!)
xi < xj ?
minimum height (time)
xi < xj ?

xa < xb ? xc < xd ?
xa < xb ? xc < xd ?

log (n!)
xe < xf ? xk < xl ? xm < xo ? xp < xq ? xe < xf ? xk < xl ? xm < xo ? xp < xq ?

n!
© 2004 Goodrich, Tamassia Sorting Lower Bound 3 © 2004 Goodrich, Tamassia Sorting Lower Bound 4
The Lower Bound
Any comparison-based sorting algorithms takes at
least log (n!) time
Therefore, any such algorithm takes time at least
n
 n 2
log (n!) ≥ log   = (n / 2) log (n / 2).
 2

That is, any comparison-based sorting algorithm must


run in Ω(n log n) time.

© 2004 Goodrich, Tamassia Sorting Lower Bound 5

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