Efficiency of a Binary Comparison Storage Technique

Authors:
E. M. Palmer;M. A. Rahimi;R. W. Robinson
Affiliations:
Department of Mathematics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI;Computer Science Department, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI;Department of Mathematics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Venue:
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
Year:
1974

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Abstract

The efficiency of an information storage technique based on binary comparisons is analyzed. Generating functions are applied to finding the mean and variance of the number of comparisons needed to retrieve one item from a store of n items. Surprisingly, the variance approaches 7 - 2/3&pgr;2 for large n.