Question

Use the divide-and-conquer approach to write a recursive algorithm that finds the maximum sum in any contiguous sublist of a given list of \(n\) real values. Analyze your algorithm, and show the results in order notation.

Short answer

The algorithm goes as follows: We first divide the array in half till we reach a base case of array of size 1. We then recursively find the maximum-sum sublists in each half and the maximum-sum sublist crossing the middle. The maximum of these values will be our answer. The time complexity for this algorithm is \(O(n \log n)\).

Step-by-step solution

Understanding the problem and the divide-and-conquer strategy

First, we need to understand the problem and how we can apply a divide-and-conquer strategy. We have a list of \(n\) real numbers, and we must find the sublist with the largest sum. Using the divide-and-conquer strategy, we can divide the problem into smaller subproblems by splitting the list in half until we have sublists of size 1, then combine the solutions to solve the larger problem.

Writing the algorithm

Our algorithm to implement the divide-and-conquer approach will have steps: 1. Define the base case of the recursion: a list of size 1 is its own maximum-sum sublist.2. If the list is longer, split it in half and recursively find the maximum-sum sublists in each half.3. Find the maximum-sum sublist crossing the middle (adding the maximum-sum suffix in the left half to the maximum-sum prefix in the right half).4. The maximum of the solutions to these three subproblems is the maximum-sum sublist of the entire list.

Analyzing the algorithm

For a list of size \(n\), each recursive call will deal with a list of approximately half the size. The maximum sum crossing the middle can be computed in linear time, thus the overall time complexity of this divide-and-conquer algorithm is \(O(n \log n)\).

Showing the results in order notation

The order notation of the algorithm is \(O(n \log n)\). This means that the time complexity of the algorithm grows logarithmically in relation to the size of the input list \(n\), multiplied by \(n\). It's a good performance for large data sets, compared to a naive solution that would have a complexity of \(O(n^2)\). This shows the efficiency of the divide-and-conquer approach.