Binary Search Concepts and Techniques

The video tutorial introduces binary search, a searching technique that follows the divide and conquer strategy. It explains the prerequisites for binary search, such as having a sorted list, and details the process of performing a binary search using low, high, and mid pointers. The tutorial provides examples to demonstrate the efficiency of binary search compared to linear search. It also covers writing the binary search algorithm and analyzing its efficiency in terms of time complexity, highlighting best, worst, and average cases.

What is the primary advantage of binary search over linear search?

• It requires less memory.

• It is faster for large datasets.

• It can search unsorted lists.

• It is easier to implement.

What strategy does binary search use to find an element?

• Greedy algorithm

• Dynamic programming

• Divide and conquer

• Brute force

What is a prerequisite for performing binary search?

• The list must be sorted.

• The list must be unsorted.

• The list must contain only integers.

• The list must be in descending order.

In binary search, what do the 'low' and 'high' pointers represent?

• The first and last elements

• The middle and end of the list

• The start and end of the list

• The smallest and largest elements

How many comparisons were needed to find the element 42 in the example?

• 4

• 2

• 5

• 3

What happens if the element is not found in binary search?

• The search starts over from the beginning.

• The search returns the closest element.

• The search continues indefinitely.

• The search stops when 'low' exceeds 'high'.

What does the binary search algorithm return if the element is found?

• The middle value

• The number of comparisons

• The element itself

• The index of the element

How is the binary search process visualized in the video?

• As a list

• As a matrix

• As a tree

• As a graph

What is the time complexity of binary search in the worst case?

• O(n^2)

• O(log n)

• O(1)

• O(n)