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I have been asked the following question..

An algorithm considers n elements, sorts 5% of n out, considers the remain elements(95%), sorts 5% of the remain elements, and so on until finally one last element is left. Which complexity does the algorithm have and why?

Luka Peric
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  • Sounds like merge sort. – Lawrence Aiello Nov 20 '15 at 16:59
  • @LawrenceAiello no more like quick sort where instead of grabbing the median for pivot you grab the 5th percentile. – ratchet freak Nov 20 '15 at 17:01
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  • The solution should be: O(log 0,95(2/n)), how do I get that ? – Luka Peric Nov 20 '15 at 18:05

1 Answers1

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Big O time complexity of divide and conquer algorithms is not affected by what fraction you divide things into. This is because logs of different bases differ by only a constant factor. So the Big O time complexity in your case is the same as if you separate 50% out.

So you should get the usual nLogn sort.

psr
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