Sorting Algorithms

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this experiment is to find which sorting algorithm is the fastest from five common algorithms. Our hypothesis was that mergesort would be the fastest as it takes advantage of it being easier to sort a short list than a long list and is able to break down the complexities of sorting thousands of numbers into many simple operations of comparing only two numbers. Methods/Materials In order to test our hypothesis, my partner and I created a program in Python that generates a list of 1,000 random integers in no particular order and then measures how fast each algorithm is able to sort that list from least to greatest. Materials include a computer running Windows and Python. Results In our 1,000 tests, the average sorting time for insertion sort was 0.000505785 seconds. The average sorting time for mergesort was 0.004430423 seconds. The average sorting time for heap sort was 0.005519048 seconds. The average sorting time for quicksort was 0.05777026 seconds. The average sorting time for Bubblesort was 0.106378149 seconds. Conclusions/Discussion Insertion sort turned out to be the fastest sorting algorithm. We believe this may be because of the extra time mergesort must have to merge lists.

Competition history

• CSEF 2011 Mathematics & Software · Entry S1406

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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