I feel stupid for asking this question, but...
For the "closest pair of points" problem (see this if unfamiliar with it), why is the worst-case running time of the brute-force algorithm O(n^2)?
If say n = 4, then there would only be 12 possible pair of points to compare in the search space, if we also consider comparing two points from either direction. If we don't compare two points twice, then it's going to be 6.
O(n^2) doesn't add up to me.
The actual number of comparisons is:
, or .
But, in big-O notation, you are only concerned about the dominant term. At very large values of , the term becomes less important, as does the coefficient on the term. So, we just say it's .
Big-O notation isn't meant to give you the exact formula for the time taken or number of steps. It only gives you the order of the complexity/time so you can get a sense of how it scales for large inputs.
Applying brute force, we are forced to check all the possible pairs.Assuming N points,for each point there are N-1 other points for which we need to calculate the distance. So total possible distances calculated = N points * N-1 other points. But in process we double counted distances. Distance between A to B remains whether A to B or B to A is calculated. Hence N*(N-1)/2. Hence O(N^2).
In big-O notation, you can factor out multiplied constants, so:
O(k*(n^2)) = O(n^2)
The idea is that the constant (1/2 in the OP example, since distance comparison is reflective) doesn't really tell us anything new about the complexity. It still gets bigger with the square of the input.
In the brute-force version of the algorithm you compare all possible pairs of points. For each of n points you have (n - 1) other points to compare and if we take every pair once we end up with (n * (n - 1)) / 2 comparisons. The pessimistic complexity of O(n^2) means that the number of operations is bound by k * n^2 for some constant k. Big O notation can't tell you the exact number of operations but a function to which it is proportional when the size of data (n) increases.
Related
Say I need to calculate the time complexity of a function
16+26+36+...+n6. I am pretty sure this would be O(n7), but I only figure that because I know that Σi from i=0 to n is in O(n2). I cannot find a simple closed-version formula for a summation of ik. Can anyone provide more detail on how to actually calculate the time complexity?
Thanks!
An easy proof that it's Θ(n⁷) is to observe that:
1⁶+2⁶+3⁶+...+n⁶ <= n⁶+n⁶+...n⁶ = n⁷
(replacing all numbers with n makes the sum larger).
and
1⁶+2⁶+3⁶+...+n⁶ >= (n/2+1)⁶+...+n⁶ >= (n/2)⁶+(n/2)⁶+...+(n/2)⁶ = n⁷/2⁷
(in the first step, we discard the terms less or equal than n/2, and in the second step we replace all numbers with n/2. Both steps reduce the sum). (Note: I've assumed n is even, but you can extend to odd n with a bit of minor fiddling around).
Thus 1⁶+2⁶+3⁶+...+n⁶ is bounded above and below by a constant factor of n⁷ and so by definition is Θ(n⁷).
As David Eisenstat suggests in the comments, another proof is to consider the (continuous) graphs y=x⁶ and y=(x+1)⁶ from 0 to n. The area under these curves bound the sum below and above, and are readily calculated via integrals: the first is n⁷/7 and the second is ((n+1)⁷-1)/7. This shows that the sum is n⁷/7 + o(n⁷)
I am currently trying to learn time complexity of algorithms, big-o notation and so on. However, some point confuses me a lot. I know that most of the time, the input size of an array or whatever we are dealing with determines the running time of the algorithm. Let's say I have an unsorted array with size N and I want to find the maximum element of this array without using any special algorithm. I just want to iterate over the array and find the maximum element. Since the size of my array is N, this process runs at O(N) or linear time. Let M is an integer that is the square root of N. So N can be written as the square of M that is M*M or M^2. So, I think there is nothing wrong if I want to replace N with M^2. I know that M^2 is also the size of my array so my big-o notation could be written as O(M^2). So, my new running time looks like running in quadratic time. Why does this happen?
You are correct, if it happens to be that you have some variable M such that M^2 ~= N is always true, you could say the algorithm runs in O(M^2).
But, note that now - the algorithm runs in quadratic related to M, and not quadratic time related to the input, it is still linear related to the size of the input.
The important thing here is defining linear/quadratic, etc.
More precisely, you have to detail linear/quadratic, etc. with respect to something (N or M for your example). The most natural choice is to study the complexity wrt. the size of the input (N for your example).
Another trap for big integers is that the size of n is log(n). So for instance if you loop over all smaller integers, your algorithm is not polynomial.
Assume that a graph has N nodes and M edges, and the total number of iterations is k.
(k is a constant integer, larger than 1, independent of N and M)
Let D=M/N be the average degree of the graph.
I have two graph-based iterative search algorithms.
The first algorithm has the complexity of O(D^{2k}) time.
The second algorithm has the complexity of O(k*D*N) time.
Based on their Big O time complexity, which one is better?
Some told me that the first one is better because the number of nodes N in a graph is usually much larger than D in real world.
Others said that the second one is better because k is exponentially increased for the first one, but is linearly increased for the second one.
Summary
Neither of your two O's dominate the other, so the right approach is to chose the algorithm based on the inputs
O Domination
The first it better when D<1 (sparse graphs) and similar.
The second is better when D is relatively large
Algorithm Selection
The important parameter is not just the O but the actual constant in front of it.
E.g., an O(n) algorithm which is actually 100000*n is worse than O(n^2) which is just n^2 when n<100000.
So, given the graph and the desired iteration count k, you need to estimate the expected performance of each algorithm and chose the best one.
Big-O notation describes how a function grows, when its arguments grow. So if you want to estimate growth of algorithm time consumption, you should estimate first how D and N will grow. That requires some additional information from your domain.
If we assume that N is going to grow anyway. For D you have several choices:
D remains constant - the first algorithm is definitely better
D grows proportionally to N - the second algorithm is better
More generally: if D grows faster than N^(1/(2k-1)), you should select the first algorithm, otherwise - the second one.
For every fixed D, D^(2k) is a constant, so the first algorithm will beat the second if M is large enough. However, what is large enough depends on D. If D isn't constant or limited, the two complexities cannot be compared.
In practice, you would implement both algorithms, find a good approximation for their actual speed, and depending on your values pick the one that will be faster.
I am confused in calculating the time complexity of one problem, please help me in that.
Problem statement:-
2-D matrix is given, you are at bottom-left block, and you have to go to top-right block. One constraint is given, from every point to can move only step either upwards or right direction.
How many such ways are there, prove mathematically ?
Time complexity is in polynomial or exponential form ?
My effort :-
If the matrix is of N*N size, then you have to move exactly 2N steps, out of which N steps is R, and remaining N steps is U.
So, if we simplify this, its a permutation and combination problem, A string is given that contains only two letters R and U, how can you arrange that ?
Answer is
( (2N) C (N) )*( (N) C (N) )*2
Question
Is my above logic correct? If not, please correct me.
Above formula is polynomial or exponential ?
Your idea is correct. However answer is a bit inaccurate.
The string only has letters R and U but its length is 2N-2.
The problem is to arrange 2N-2 objects such that n-1 are of 1 type and n-1 objects are of other type.
The number of possibilities = factorial(2N-2)/( factorial(n-1) * factorial(n-1) )
If you consider product of 2 numbers as O(k), then calculating the above shall have a time complexity of O(N*k).
To get an idea of the order of multiplication for various algorithms, you can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_of_mathematical_operations
EDIT:
This number appears in the expansion of binomial coeffecients of 2^(2n-2).
Hence we can safely say that "counting up to this number" is bounded by an exponential rate of growth, not factorial.
Let's say I have a matrix that has X rows and Y columns. The total number of elements is X*Y, correct? So does that make n=X*Y?
for (i=0; i<X; i++)
{
for (j=0; j<Y; j++)
{
print(matrix[i][j]);
}
}
Then wouldn't that mean that this nested for loop is O(n)? Or am I misunderstanding how time complexities work?
Generally, I thought all nested for loops were O(n^2), but if it goes through X*Y calls to print(), doesn't that mean that the time complexity is O(X*Y) and X*Y is equal to n?
If you have a matrix of size rows*columns, then the inner loop (let's say) is O(columns), and the nested loops together are O(rows*columns).
You are confusing a problem size of N for a problem size of N^2. You can either say your matrix is size N or your matrix is size N^2, though unless your matrix is square you should say that you have a matrix of size Rows*Columns.
You are right when you say n = X x Y but wrong when you say the nested loops should be O(n). The meaning of nested loop can be understood if you dry run your code. You will notice that for each iteration of the outer loop the inner loop runs n (or what ever is the size condition) times. Hence, by simple math, you can deduce that its O(n^2). But, if you had just one loop when you will be iterating over (X x Y) (Eg: for(i = 0; i<(X*Y); i++) elements, then it will be O(n) cause you are not restarting your iteration at any point of time.
Hope this makes sense.
This answer was written hastily and received a few downvotes, so I decided to clarify and rewrite it
Time complexity of an algorithm is an expression of the number of operations of the algorithm in terms of the size of the problem the algorithm is intended to solve.
There are two sizes involved here.
The first size is the number of elements of the matrix X × Y This corresponds to what is known in complexity theory as the size of input. Let k = X × Y denote the number of elements in the matrix. Since the number of operations in the twin loop is X × Y, it is in O(k).
The second size is the number of columns and rows of the matrix. Let m = max(X,Y). The number of operations in the twin loop is in O(m^2). Usually in Linear Algebra this kind of size is used to characterize the complexity of matrix operations on m × m matrices.
When you talk about complexity you have to specify precisely how you encode an instance problem and what parameter you use to specify its size. In Complexity Theory we usually assume that the input to an algorithm is given as a string of characters coming from some finite alphabet and measure the complexity of an algorithm in terms of an upper bound on the number of operations on an instance of a problem given by a string of length n. That is in Complexity Theory n is usually the size of input.
In practical Complexity Analysis of algorithms we often use other measures of the size of an instance that are more meaningful in specific context. For instance if A is a connectivity matrix of a graph, we may use the number of vertices V as a measure of complexity of an instance of a problem, or if A is a matrix of a linear operator acting on a vector space, we may use the dimension of a vector space as such a measure. For square matrices the convention is to specify the complexity in terms of the dimension of the matrix, that is to measure the complexity of algorithms acting upon n × n matrices in terms of n. It often makes practical sense and also agrees with the conventions of a specific application field even if it may contradict the conventions of Complexity Theory.
Let us give the name Matrix Scan to our twin loop. You may legitimately say that if the size of an instance of Matrix Scan is the length of a string encoding of a matrix. Assuming bounded size of the entries it is the number of elements in the matrix, k. Then we can say the complexity of Matrix Scan is in O(k). On the other hand if we take m = max(X,Y) as a parameter that characterizes the complexity of an instance, as is customary in many applications, then the complexity Matrix Scan for an X×Y matrix will is also in O(m^2). For a square matrix X = Y = m and O(k) = O(m^2).
Notice: Some people in the comments asked whether we can always find an encoding of the problem to reduce any polynomial problem to a linear problem. This is not true. For some algorithms the number of operations grows faster than the length of the string encoding of their input. For instance, there is no algorithm to multiply two m×m matrices with θ(m^2) number of operations. Here the size of input grows as m^2, however Ran Raz proved that the number of operations grows at least as fast as m^2 log m. If n is in O(m^2) then m^2 log m is in O(n log n) and the best known algorithms complexity grows as O(m^(2+c)) = O(n^(1+c/2)), where c is at least 0.372 for versions of Coppersmith-Winograd algorithm and c = 1 for the common iterative algorithm.
Generally, I thought all nested for loops were O(n^2),
You are wrong about that. What confuses you I guess is that often people use as an example square(X==Y) matrix so complexity is n*n(X==n,Y==n).
If you want to practise your O(*) skills try to figure out why matrix multiplication is O(n^3). IF you dont know the algorithm for matrix multiplication it is easy to find it online.