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Glite Dictionary
quantum bogosort

quantum bogosort

9.9
A joke name for a sorting method that tries random orders until the list is sorted and is very slow
  • noun
  • Jargon
translation icon : quantum bogosort
  • The professor joked that using quantum bogosort would take longer than the age of the universe.

Examples

  • When we saw his code used quantum bogosort, everyone burst out laughing.

  • Discussing worst-case scenarios, she brought up quantum bogosort as the ultimate example.

  • The quantum bogosort is a joke among programmers.

  • Have you ever heard of quantum bogosort?

  • In a programming class, the teacher humorously mentioned quantum bogosort as a method that makes sorting an endless joke.

  • During the coding competition, the team decided to use quantum bogosort to highlight how not to sort data efficiently.

  • The tech podcast featured an amusing debate on the merits of quantum bogosort as the worst sorting algorithm ever created.

How Efficient

sorting algorithm
  • Specialized
1 4.0
quantum bogosort
  • Jargon
9.9

Surface Forms

quantum bogosort singular
quantum bogosorts plural

Morphology

quantum + bogosort

The phrase is technical programmer jargon: 'bogosort' is a culture-specific, humorous name for a useless sorting algorithm (and is not a normal dictionary word), so its meaning is not recoverable from the literal constituents. Even knowing 'quantum' does not make the intended joke or algorithmic sense predictable to a B1 learner; the expression is specialist and idiomatic within programming discourse.

Etymology

Quantum bogosort comes from a programmer joke: bogosort is a silly method that keeps shuffling items until they happen to be in order, and adding quantum imagines trying every possible order at once. That clear, funny image explains why the name is used to mean a 'very slow' or 'useless' sorting method.