What is the time complexity of the best-case scenario for Quick Sort?
Practice Questions
Q1
What is the time complexity of the best-case scenario for Quick Sort?
O(n)
O(n log n)
O(n^2)
O(log n)
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What is the time complexity of the best-case scenario for Quick Sort?
Step 1: Understand what Quick Sort is. It is a sorting algorithm that works by selecting a 'pivot' element and partitioning the array into two halves based on this pivot.
Step 2: Know that the best-case scenario occurs when the pivot divides the array into two equal halves every time.
Step 3: Realize that when the array is divided into two equal parts, the depth of the recursive calls is log(n), where n is the number of elements in the array.
Step 4: Understand that for each level of recursion, we need to process all n elements to partition them around the pivot.
Step 5: Combine the two insights: since we have log(n) levels of recursion and we process n elements at each level, the total time complexity is O(n log n).