Alright, folks! I know I keep this weblog very personal and there's art flowing all around this website, but let's talk some mathematics today! Specifically, we are here to discuss the notion of lower bounds for sorting algorithms. Now, when I say sorting algorithms, I am talking about comparison-based sorting algorithms. There are other sorting algorithms like counting sort, radix sort, bucket sort, etc. but they are a topic for another day. Now, buckle up for a long text-based post and a vomit load of mathematics, because, by the end of this article, we are going to show that any deterministic comparison-based sorting algorithm must take $\Omega(n \log n)$ time to sort an array of n elements in the worst case.
You started reading this article, and reached this point and wondered, "Wait, we are discussing the notion of lower bounds"? "What is a lower bound"? ... "To think that, what the fuck even is a bound"? Well, if you are pondering over that question, well ponder no more! I promised you a shit-ton of information and a butt-load of theory, so here we go!
