Sorting a hand of cards
Dealt a messy hand, you slide each card into its place until the whole hand is in order. Computers sort data with strategies like this, and each strategy has a cost — some breeze through a shuffled deck, others crawl.
Bubble sort, step by step
Bubble sort repeatedly walks the list, comparing each neighboring pair and swapping them if they're out of order. After each full pass the largest remaining value 'bubbles' to the end. It's simple but slow: O(n²) comparisons.
Simulation · Bubble sort visualizer
comparing positions 0 and 1
Press Step to perform one comparison/swap. Watch the largest bar bubble to the right each pass.
Lab · Count the work
- Shuffle the bars and step until sorted.
- Notice you compare nearly every pair on every pass.
- Imagine doing this for 1,000 items.
What you should see: The number of comparisons grows with n², which is why O(n log n) sorts like mergesort are preferred at scale.