Big O Notation and Sorting Algorithms

Big O Notation and Sorting Algorithms

Big O Notation is how programmers describe the efficiency of a search or sorting algorithm. The efficiency is, as we have seen during lectures, based on how long it takes for a search or sort algorithm to search or sort through items. Some algorithms and their efficiencies are binary search trees, which have efficiencies of log n, and selection and quick sort, which have efficiencies of n to the 2nd power. Merge sort has an efficiency of log n, because the list of items given is split into two groups, and from there those two groups are split into two, and so on and so forth. Much like with linked lists and binary trees, the big O notation and sorting algorithms were concepts I studied in high school, so they were not something I had to learn and understand from the beginning.