What is the time complexity of the 'Find' operation with path compression in Dis
Practice Questions
Q1
What is the time complexity of the 'Find' operation with path compression in Disjoint Set Union?
O(1)
O(log n)
O(n)
O(α(n))
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What is the time complexity of the 'Find' operation with path compression in Disjoint Set Union?
Step 1: Understand what a Disjoint Set Union (DSU) is. It is a data structure that keeps track of a partition of a set into disjoint (non-overlapping) subsets.
Step 2: Learn about the 'Find' operation. This operation is used to determine which subset a particular element belongs to.
Step 3: Know that path compression is an optimization technique used during the 'Find' operation. It flattens the structure of the tree whenever 'Find' is called, making future queries faster.
Step 4: Realize that without path compression, the 'Find' operation can take a long time, especially if the tree is tall. However, with path compression, the trees become flatter.
Step 5: Understand that the time complexity of the 'Find' operation with path compression is not constant but is very efficient. It is expressed as O(α(n)), where α is the inverse Ackermann function.
Step 6: Recognize that the inverse Ackermann function grows very slowly, meaning that for all practical purposes, O(α(n)) is almost constant time for any reasonable input size.
