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Roll 2026-1116:9
I Shuffled Every Row of a Smiley. Which Sort Brings It Back First?
About this piece
Every ball in this smiley knows its number, its spot in the row. I shuffled all 128 rows and let nine ways of sorting put them back.
Bubble rebuilds the face from the right edge. Insertion grows a squeezed face that stretches. Merge makes 8 skinny faces, then 4, 2, 1. Quick brings it into focus.
On a nearly finished face, quick came last. On backwards rows the face already looks done, and bubble still needs 24,384 steps per row. And the winner never compares two balls at all.
Chapters
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