What is the worst-case scenario for the number of comparisons made by binary sea

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Question: What is the worst-case scenario for the number of comparisons made by binary search?

Options:

Correct Answer: log n

Solution:

In the worst case, binary search makes log n comparisons, where n is the number of elements in the array.

What is the worst-case scenario for the number of comparisons made by binary search?

What is the worst-case scenario for the number of comparisons made by binary search?

Step 1: Understand what binary search is. It is a method to find an item in a sorted array by repeatedly dividing the search interval in half.
Step 2: Know that binary search starts by looking at the middle element of the array.
Step 3: If the middle element is not the target, binary search decides whether to continue searching in the left half or the right half of the array.
Step 4: Each time you divide the array in half, you reduce the number of elements to search through.
Step 5: The worst-case scenario occurs when you have to keep dividing the array until you narrow it down to one element.
Step 6: The number of times you can divide n elements in half is log base 2 of n (written as log n).
Step 7: Therefore, in the worst case, binary search makes log n comparisons to find the target or determine it is not in the array.

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