Abstract
Since computer processing mainly depends on sorting and searching methods, a key problem is how to design efficient algorithms in order to solve such problems. This paper describes a new nature-inspired mechanism (called Friction-based Sorting) capable of sorting a given set of numbers. The main idea behind this mechanism is to associate a ball (whose weight is proportional to the considered number) to each number. All the balls being allowed to fall in the presence of friction, the heaviest ball (which corresponds to the greatest input number) will reach the ground first and the lightest ball (associated with the smallest number) will reach the ground last. The proposed mechanism is analyzed, together with its strengths and weaknesses.
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Notes
Both digital and analog hardware implementations of Beadsort can achieve a sorting time of \({\mathcal{O}}(\sqrt{n})\) (Arulanandham et al. 2004).
m is the maximum value of an item from S or the number of poles.
Stable sorting algorithms maintain the relative order of records with equal keys (i.e., sort key values). A sorting algorithm is stable if whenever there are two records R 1 and R 2 having the same key, as well as R 1 appearing before R 2 in the original list, it means that R 1 will appear before R 2 in the sorted list. Unstable sorting algorithms may change the relative order of records with equal keys, but stable sorting algorithms never do.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank to anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions. This research was supported by grant IDEI-543/2007 from CNCSIS.
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Dioşan, L., Oltean, M. Friction-based sorting. Nat Comput 10, 527–539 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-010-9201-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11047-010-9201-5