[seqfan] Slowest sort

[Charles Greathouse]

I assume that things like delay loops aren't allowed.

A good starting point would be the bogosort, where you reshuffle all
elements unless they're already in order. This takes average time O(n*n!)
with Fisher-Yates shuffling. To improve on this, the shuffle method must be
made less favorable than random, or else the decision to shuffle must be
made less often. The latter seems like cheating, though it could be
concealed -- for example, clone the deck, shuffle both, then check if
they're both in order for time O(n*n!^2) on average.

Charles Greathouse
Analyst/Programmer
Case Western Reserve University


On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 12:10 PM, Ron Hardin <rhhardin at att.net> wrote:

> Only semi-related, there was a contest at work once to come up with the
> slowest sort algorithm.
>
> I don't remember what won.
>
>
> rhhardin at mindspring.com
> rhhardin at att.net (either)
>
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