At last - Quicksort the dance
Written by Mike James   
Tuesday, 03 May 2011

If you have been following the surreal interpretations of sorting algorithms as folk dances here is the ingenious culmination - the Quicksort, the most difficult of algorithms, complete with hats as pointers.

Yes I know I claimed that it would be impossible, or if possible the result would be a modern dance the like of which we have not seen, but.... they have done it.

 

quicksortthedance

 

The slightly insane dance group at Sapientia University has put together a Hungarian folk dance with steps that follow the Quicksort algorithm. It is worth noting that it takes just short of 7 minutes to sort just ten dancers which really isn't very quick; that only males take part which proves that it is a very dangerous algorithm and, oh yes, two hats are used to mark the progress of the scan!

Clever stuff!

Now see if you are anywhere near as clever by verifying that they are in fact dancing the Quicksort...

 

    

 

If you need help then all I can suggest is that you keep your eye on the hats, notice exactly what happens when they meet and pay attention to the partitions that are produced.

If you are slightly vague about how Quicksort is supposed to work then read: QuickSort exposed

Related video news items:

Sorting algorithms as dances

Merge sort as folk dance

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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 May 2011 )