2.1 - Searching and Sorting Algorithms
"it's not a mess, I know exactly where everything is!"
Try explaining your search algorithm next time your parents moan about your messy room. You'll at least buy some time while they question whether you've lost the plot or not.
In my first year of university there was a girl called Melanie who lived a few floors below me in our tower block. She had the distinction of owning quite the most disgustingly untidy room I have ever seen and indeed it had to be seen to be believed. I made the mistake of trying to walk in there once and managed to get the door open just enough to poke my head round it. I took one look at Stig of the Dump's Lair before sensibly retreating to a safe distance before a life form emerged and took me hostage.
There wasn't a square inch of carpet visible, there was stuff just strewn all over the place. I did contemplate trying to see how many obscure items I could hide amongst the debris before she noticed - bits of taxidermy, road signs, a traffic warden, those kinds of things.
Why am I telling you this story? Well, it turned out that Melanie had quite the most amazing ability to find absolutely anything in there. Ask her to borrow a course text book, in she'd go and return seconds later with it. Need a pneumatic drill? In she'd go, out she'd come with it moments later. There wasn't any rummaging - to her that pile of trash was a highly organised, systematic mess. I did wonder if her mind was organised in the same way. She clearly had an algorithm, a method of finding things that was highly effective. Indeed, the only person I've seen since with such brilliant powers of recall is Derren Brown and he makes a lot of cash using some very clever algorithms.
See, algorithms - fun and useful in real life.
You need to know how to sort information in to order using:
And then you need to be able to find it using:
Use the videos below to help you revise/learn these algorithms.
There wasn't a square inch of carpet visible, there was stuff just strewn all over the place. I did contemplate trying to see how many obscure items I could hide amongst the debris before she noticed - bits of taxidermy, road signs, a traffic warden, those kinds of things.
Why am I telling you this story? Well, it turned out that Melanie had quite the most amazing ability to find absolutely anything in there. Ask her to borrow a course text book, in she'd go and return seconds later with it. Need a pneumatic drill? In she'd go, out she'd come with it moments later. There wasn't any rummaging - to her that pile of trash was a highly organised, systematic mess. I did wonder if her mind was organised in the same way. She clearly had an algorithm, a method of finding things that was highly effective. Indeed, the only person I've seen since with such brilliant powers of recall is Derren Brown and he makes a lot of cash using some very clever algorithms.
See, algorithms - fun and useful in real life.
You need to know how to sort information in to order using:
- Bubble sort
- Merge sort
- Insertion sort
And then you need to be able to find it using:
- Linear search
- Binary search
Use the videos below to help you revise/learn these algorithms.
Bubble Sort |
Merge Sort |
Insertion Sort
|
|
|
Binary Search |
Linear Search |
