Lecture Notes on 18 Sep 2020

* What is an algorithm?
  - step by step solution to a problem

* What are the characteristics of an algorithm?
  - finite, the algorithm must terminate
  - definite, each of the steps are well defined
  - computable, each of the steps can be computed

* How do you judge the efficiency of an algorithm?
  - time complexity
  - space complexity

* A problem has many instances. We use the worst-case
  scenario to judge the performance.

* Linear algorithm, O(n) - time complexity increases
  linearly as the size of the instance